WHAT IS YOUR STANDARD FOR TRUTH

Published November 19, 2008

It is time to decide what your center of reference for truth will be.
When we are born we have five senses in which we gather information they are hearing, seeing, smelling tasting and touching. These are the only way natural man can learn. It is with these senses that we accumulate enough information to start making decisions about what is right and what is wrong, how we are going to live our lives and what standards we are going to run by. BUT, outside of those senses we have multiple centers of reference to sort through.
The newspaper is a center of reference. The TV is a center of reference. The radio, Cds, movies, magazines, books are all centers of reference. So, also, are people such as friends, family, teachers. Basically, anybody you come in contact with are centers of reference. This means that what they say or do can and will effect the way you think, act and believe if you allow it to. That is the way God designed it but, very few of these centers of reference hold the truth nor are they held by the truth.
The truth is something that is right and transcends time, culture, and trends. For example four plus four is six. No its not, it is eight. But look at what your mind did when you read that. You challenged that thought and found it incorrect. You had learned that four plus four equals eight and have applied that in practice enough to know that it is true. What about the other things that are being taught and that have become centers of reference for you? In this article I want to deal specifically with the spiritual aspect of this issue. First, is there a God? Where did you get your information from to form the opinion that you hold? Wether it is from a movie or a book or an article or a person HOW do you know that that opinion is right and that that opinion transcends time, culture and trends? Even if you mother, father and minister tell you that God exists you can be told by equally authoritative people that there is no God. You can hear that God is a collective universalism. What kind of God is He? Your centers of reference can tell you that He is wrathful God or that he wants young children to blow themselves along with others for a cause. You from your learning can believe that God is a loving God and offers protection and wisdom and an abundant life. But, where did you learn that? Is it true? How do you know it is true?
Do you see how confusing this could get to be and how many things that we believe we never challenge, we just believe? You have to have ONE reference for truth. When you have one center, one reference for truth then everything else will have to be held up against this knowledge for comparison. It is not your parents or your pastor or the movie stars or anybody else that should be your center of reference for the truth. I submit to you that the Bible should be your only center for truth! Men go astray even the best intentioned men are not right 100% of the time. But the Bible is. So now someone will be saying that the Bible has inaccuracies and that it is just myths and fables. Really? How do you know that? Have you studied the Bible to find that out or is it one of those things that you never challenge and just accepted as truth? Why not put aside your opinions and preconceived ideas and go to the Bible and see what it has to say for itself? The Bible testifies of itself and yet men want to dismiss it or talk about it but for some reason they never seem to get to the Word (the Bible) and Stay with it. John 17:17 states that God’s Word is Truth. In John 14:6 Jesus Christ Said “I am the way, the truth, and the life:” Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate while the Written Word is set down for you and for me to learn of God. Many scholars deny the existence of truth and certainty but God via His Word refutes that idea. Eight times in the New Testament God says that he would not have us ignorant. (Rom. 1:13, Rom. 11.25, I Cor. 12:1, II Cor. 1:8, II Cor. 2:11, I Thess. 4:13, II Peter 3:8) If He doesn’t want us ignorant then He wants us to be knowledgeable and sure.
Do you wan to be free? There is only one way to be free and that is knowing the Word of Truth and that IS the Bible!
John 8: 31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
God wants you to be prosperous. God wants you to have peace. God is a loving God a forgiving God a God that is willing and able to save you from the troubles that you are in if only you will hear His call and come back to the ONE center of reference for truth – that is the rightly divided Word of God.

Posted in General