Truth is more about morals than knowledge

Even though Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32) truth is far more than knowing facts, or even believing something is true. Truth gives freedom only when it is known and lived out. 

Jesus words were questioned by those who heard them. They claimed to be free from any sort of slavery, assuming Jesus meant physical bondage, but Jesus said:

Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father. (John 8:34–38)

This is such a loaded answer. First truth: all who sin are slaves to sin. Because sin is defined as doing our own thing instead of obeying God (see Isaiah 53:6), sin is not mere immoral acts. It includes all of life that is apart from faith in the Lord and doing His will. 

Second truth: a slave need not remain a slave. By faith in Christ, sinners can become members of God’s family, sons and daughters. And those who believe live in the ‘house’ of God forever. 

Third truth: salvation through faith in Christ sets sinners free from the penalty and power of sin. Doing my own thing is no longer my task-master. I am able to put aside my ideas, weaknesses, even strengths, and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to direct all that I do. I’m free from cravings, indecision, human effort, and the driving force of ‘I want what I want when I want it’ so that I can love God. 

Fourth truth: no matter my heritage or the fact that I read the Bible, truth is about my attitude toward Jesus. I am not a Jew, yet I could know the words of God’s book. However, if those words go in one ear and out the other, it shows a heart in slavery. True freedom is being transformed in not only how I think but how I talk and live.

Fifth truth: involves listening to God and not the lies of Satan. The Bible says that those who are set free are aware of his devices. That means I recognize and am set free from the bondage of lies, even though that involves a choice to believe what God says and not listen to the Liar. 
Piper says that to love God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is to love the truth. I cannot separate God from truth. This is who He is and what defines Him. He is not like humans. He is the source of a truth-driven life.

Piper also says that to not love truth is eternally suicidal — based on this:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9–12)

Indifference to the truth is a mark of spiritual death. It involves taking pleasure in sin, revealing that the alternative of truth is immorality and wickedness, not merely falsehood. Again, loving and believing the truth with my whole heart is a matter of eternal life rather mere knowledge.

PRAY: Jesus, the world seems filled with those who have abandoned truth (You) for the lies of Satan and the folly of sin. If I focus on this, heaviness threatens. But another reality drives away darkness and hopelessness, the reality that You are the way, the truth, and the life. And You have come into my life to set me free, from sin but also from doubt and all fear. I can still choose to do my own thing, but that cannot compare to the wonder of living in truth. Your grace is humbling and not at all deserved — yet fills my heart and life with great joy and thanksgiving.

The only remedy for Guilt . . .

 

Occasionally I see condemned buildings. Usually they are not safe, made so by neglect or abuse. When selecting today’s word that describes God, I wanted to skip this negative one, CONDEMN, yet God does condemn. Interesting though, this word in its various forms occurs far less than the wonderful word, REDEEM which is used at least two times as much. This is hopeful!

The positives are in the words of Jesus and the NT. Jesus makes it clear the criteria for both redemption and condemnation . . .

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved (redeemed) through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:17–18)

Condemnation is about unbelief, about rejecting God’s offer of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It includes sin, yet if sin were the only criteria, no one could be saved “for all sin and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is why the Word of God says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) He is our only escape.

The reason sin is not in this equation is that everyone sins and no one can stop it without a drastic change of heart and mind. God tells us to obey Him but takes into consideration our inability to do so. We need His help.

Another factor is also in play with the human issue of sin. Sin is driven by Satan’s activity of lies, false signs and wonders, and wicked deception in the lives of those who “refuse to love the truth and so be saved.” God reveals Himself in creation and is refused, or God reveals Himself through His Word and is rejected, or God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and He is crucified. “ Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9–12)

Persisting in unbelief at any level leads to condemnation and condemnation makes a person much like those old, boarded up buildings. We were created in the image of God to glorify Him. Sin marred that image. If anyone persists in sin, they are abusing and neglecting that for which they were created. Their lives become useless to their original purpose and therefore are boarded up, eventually falling apart for that lack of being meaningful.

The Bible defines sin as going our own way, doing our own thing, saying NO to the Owner and the Owner’s manual. Condemnation, like that of a building, happens through an authority who declares guilt. The Hebrew word means “to declare guilty of wickedness or immorality” like an inspector who checks out the building to see if it is fit for what it was created for. The Greek word means, “to be or become subject to a pronouncement of guilt and a punitive sentence in a legal context.”

We all fall short and deserve the “CONDEMNED” sign over our heads yet the good news is that Jesus took our condemnation and bore its penalty and, in the sacrifice and rising from death to life, He offers us new life — a reconstruction job. This is like those TV shows where a crew comes in and totally rebuilds a rundown house and makes it new.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The remake is both instant and takes a while, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ!

Why would anyone not want this? Is it because of the difficulty of looking in the mirror and both realizing and admitting the reflection is not like the image of God —  that it has flaws and imperfections, also evil in varying degrees? Human pride also likes to be in charge, to think we can do it right without help, or at least do it our way without correction. Any rejection says very simply that “I don’t believe what God says” and therein calling God a liar and condemning ourselves.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. This next verse fills me with joy and tears: “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34) Jesus died for me, lives for me, prays all the time for me. His incredible love puts me on my face before Him, glad that He convicted me of sin and unbelief, and glad that He gave me new life in His Son. Sometimes I feel like an old, abandoned building, but that is not what God says about me; I am a new creation and I belong to Him; He can use my life as He wishes because the condemned sign that should have been nailed on me was nailed to the cross and He was condemned for my sake. Hallelujah, what a Savior!