We live in a world of competing truths. I hear people casually refer to their personal version of truth, saying things like, that’s true for you but not for me. Such a vapid sentiment might apply to preferred ice cream flavors, but when it comes to truth to set your life by, mushy ideas fall flat.

Jesus spoke a great deal about truth. Here’s an example: 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.”

Some Christians center on the words of Jesus, printed in red in many Bibles. They push the writings of the apostles and the Old Testament to a lower tier. Focusing particularly on the teachings of Jesus will certainly change your life. But Jesus himself referred to the prophets and embraced the full orb of the Scriptures. Why cheat yourself? Take in the red and black words together and enjoy the mix.

The truth will set you free. If I read and ponder and wrestle with the text under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I discover a path to truth. When I practice these teachings in my daily life, among actual people and real situations, Jesus’ concepts emerge to set me free from the expectations and empty promises of this world.

One truth, one way, one life. It’s beautiful, creative and sustaining, and it’s found only in and through Jesus Christ.

John 8:31-32

Photo by Susan Holt Simpson

Angered at the ongoing rejection of his gifts and the refusal to heed his prophets, God handed the people of Israel over to invaders. Not benevolent occupiers, but the worst of the worst.

I will pour out my indignation upon you; I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hands of brutish men, skillful to destroy.

God delivered Israel to abhorrent men. In rejecting the One who delivered them from Egypt, they opened the door to savage, vicious, accomplished masters of destruction. Orcs overwhelmed the land.

The people of Israel earned this retribution as they continually rejected God year after year. By burning their children alive to appease demons in the guise of gods, they exhibited brutal behavior of their own. These people destroyed a culture based on the law of God. They grew cruel and hostile long before the invasion. The people of Israel sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind.

How is our culture any different?

Not that we live in a theocratic era, but if we sow savage behaviors will we not reap a similar whirlwind of destruction? Do we not also destroy children on the alters of expediency and convenience? If history is our guide, a storm will eventually appear.

I cannot snap my fingers and change the world. But I can sow to the ways of the Lord. I can attempt to love my neighbor as myself, including children both born and unborn. In so doing I stave off the brutish and destructive a little longer, and help others discover the grace and mercy of our amazing God.

Ezekiel 21:31

Photo by Jade Koroliuk

One of the amazing feats of our modern medical establishment involves transplanting organs from one person to another. The first successful heart transplant took place in 1967. Today surgeons perform around 5,000 heart transplants every year. Include all organ transplants (kidney, liver, lungs and pancreas) and the list approaches 50,000. We live in a favored age.

God spoke to the people of Israel and urged them to undergo a transplant. Having pursued other gods, even to the point of burning their children alive as sacrifices, these Hebrews possessed hearts clogged with evil and massed with the scar tissue of self-indulgence. For years they flipped the Lord their middle finger. Yet God invited them back.

Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!

The Lord urged his people to return to him again and again. God takes no joy in the demise of anyone. He wants all to turn to him in repentance. Despite their heinous acts, the Lord extended the invitation to turn and find life.

It’s never too late. Even the worst of us (and we all fit into that category at one time or another) can humbly approach the Lord and receive a new spirit and a new heart.

Ezekiel 18:31-32

Photo by Bekky Bekks

The canard on the God of the Old Testament centers around claims of fury and vindictiveness. Why would God encourage the slaughter of the nations Israel displaced from the promised land? Then again, why would God allow the slaughter of Israel when he later drummed them out of the same land? One thing for sure, don’t trifle with this God.

But a later psalmist pointed to another aspect of the Old Testament God. During the hopeful return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, the writer expounded on God’s goodness:

The Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground.

Notice the tenderness of this Old Testament God. Those who hurt and suffer garner his attention. The One who gave every single uncountable star its name also knows you and me by name. Regardless of my station or circumstances the Lord stays by me and cares for me.

Dig deeper into the God of the Old Testament. Don’t believe the skeptics. Jesus didn’t—he declined to ignore a single jot or tittle from the Hebrew scriptures. The more I read through the Bible (this year makes 32 times cover to cover), the more insight I gain into the coherence and combination of both testaments, and the more I appreciate our amazing God.

Psalm 147:3-6

Photo by avidan yoram