Hello, dear friends. I feel like I haven’t written in quite some time. At least not about the nitty-gritty parts of my life—the areas where God has been working most. In part, I confess, it’s because what I have to share isn’t always so fun. The past year was one of the darkest in my life, battling depression and anxiety in ways I’ve never experienced before. I have been wrestling with whether or not to continue blogging.
But in asking God for discernment on what to do, I feel led to continue and to pray that MS and this blog will not be wasted—that somehow God will use this blog to lead people to Christ and to a bigger view of who God really is.
As mentioned, parts of this past year were very hard for me physically, spiritually and emotionally, in part as a byproduct of the disease on which I started this blog; however, God is a faithful God. The one and only true God, who knows my most inner thoughts—my most sinful self—and yet still loves me in ways I cannot imagine. While going through this difficult time, I could not always feel that love, but because of His great faithfulness, He allowed me to know it. To cling to His Word and to pray it sometimes minute by minute.
This past summer, I was asked to share at our women’s church series about a chapter in Jen Wilkin’s book, In His Image. I would like to share my talk with you here in three parts. Please be reminded this was meant to be spoken and that it is a dialogue on the chapter in her book, “God Most Truthful.” All three parts are meant to be read as one so it will be most helpful to read through in order.
I thank God for His Word and pray this will somehow be an encouragement to you. I strongly recommend the book, as well.
GOD MOST TRUTHFUL - PART ONE
I used to make my students memorize a poem by Robert Frost. You can imagine how thrilled all my boys were to engage in this task. Nonetheless, I had them memorize “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost:
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower,
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
And isn’t this so in our world? Nothing gold can stay. We, as Christians, can put meaning to this. We are aware of sin and its impact on this world. Here nothing is forever. And this idea—of the everlasting, of forever--is a very clear way we and our world are NOT like our God. Our God—He is forever. Psalm 190 tells us, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Much of our world looks for truth from people like Robert Frost, but we as Christians must not fall into this trap. There is no Truth other than God’s Truth. We can know this because he tells us—that God and God’s Word—His Truth, it is eternal. I recently listened to a talk by Beth Moore where she said, “God can do anything He pleases but will never stray from His Word.” After all how could he? He could never betray Himself. As Wilkin puts it, “God is truth. He is its origin and its determiner. What he defines as true is eternally true, unchangingly true. Because he is truth, all of his actions reveal truth and all of his words declare it. As the fullness of truth itself, God is incapable of lying…” (123). I start here because, if we succumb to our culture’s views of moral relativism and good vibes and karma and “Just do you,” and we miss the Truthfulness of God in His Word—both in Jesus Christ and the Bible—this entire discussion of “God Most Truthful” crumbles in a moment.
As we begin our time together, I believe this is the cornerstone of God Most Truthful: John tells us, “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” May we pause to let that sink in... . The Word is God—it is Jesus Christ himself. We cannot say we believe in God and at the same time reject His Son or His Scripture. MacArthur says, “Of course, there cannot be any discord or difference of opinion between the written Word of God (Scripture) and the incarnate Word of God (Jesus). In the first place, truth by definition cannot contradict itself. Second, Scripture is called the “word of Christ” (Colossians 3:16). It is His message, His self-expression. In other words, the truth of Christ and the truth of the Bible are of the very same character. They are in perfect agreement in every respect. Both are equally true. God has revealed Himself to humanity through Scripture and through His Son. Both perfectly embody the essence of what truth is.”
As we look to pinpoint the idea of God’s truthfulness amidst the other chapters of this book, I think it is important to begin by reviewing the purpose of the book in its entirety: to go back to the introduction. She tells us the purpose is to understand less of What I should do and more of Who I should be. I believe we must come first and foremost to the point that we don’t get to decide what is right and wrong in our lives. MacArthur suggests that “there are serious moral implications, too, whenever someone tries to dissociate truth from the knowledge of God… Abandon a biblical definition of truth, and unrighteousness is the inescapable result.” There is a place we must go. And what an incredible gift He has given us in His Word. I have been studying in 1 and 2 Thessalonians this summer and in the study, Beth Moore makes this observation: “The singular guard against deception is truth…We are blessed to have limitless opportunities to study under many pastors and teachers but, if we do not go diligently to the Scriptures for ourselves, the question is not whether or not we’ll be deceived, but how often.”
We cannot make a liar out of a God who cannot be such. And so, when we need a way to discern, let us look to the truth of Scripture. In a culture where the “new way of thinking,” the progressive way of thinking is always considered better, Wilkin reminds us that we must be careful of anyone pedaling “new truths.” She says, “…we need old truths recently forgotten. It is not personal truths we need, but rather shared truth preserved and passed down from one believing generation to the next, personalized to us in our current day. That shared truth is available within the pages of God’s Word to me and to all who believe.” When we are not sure what we ought to do or think, it is helpful to be reminded—even when we don’t like it—that if it is not consistent with God’s Word, then it cannot be the way to follow…