What The World Needs Most

Love you all, praying for you.
 
What does the world need most?  Jesus?  Yes, of course, but what the world needs most is truth.  Jesus is truth, so if you know truth, you know Jesus, if you know Jesus you know truth.  Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life. (John 14:6) In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)   And the Word became human form and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14).  Jesus is the truth, he came to testify to the truth. (John 18:37) Without knowing what is true, you cannot please God, and you cannot walk in the full blessing that He has for you.  That’s why God promised the Holy Spirit – to lead you in all truth.  That’s how you know who knows Jesus, they know the difference between truth and lies.  The devil blinds people with lies, so they won’t know the truth, or they would repent and turn, and be saved.  God even said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6) It means they are lacking truth, they are ignorant of it.  They are not resisting sin, they are blinded by it, they don’t even believe it’s sin.  They have justified their behavior and hold God to their standard, rather than hold themselves to God’s standard.  Could this be you?  Wherever you are missing truth in your life, you are being destroyed, ruined.  The devil always brings lies because he hates truth, he wants you ruined and destroyed.  Some people are opposed to truth. That’s what happens when you reject truth, you soon become opposed to it.  And then it won’t be long before you call lies the truth, and truth a lie. God says “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)  Woe, that means sudden and complete destruction – they won’t escape it.   It’s now believed that everyone has their own truth.  Untrue, false, a lie.  You can have your opinion and your experience, but you may or may not be sharing truth, you might just be sharing what you think, and what caused you to think that way.  There is one truth, truth is eternal.  It’s truth or not.  God is the author and measure of all truth.  What He says is true, anything other… is false, a lie, deception.  Many count what God says is true, unless he says something we don’t like, or something that we do, and want to keep doing.  Then we ignore it, or twist it, or make excuses, or interpret it to be the opposite of what He really said.  Or we say, “He didn’t mean always… or I’m excused, or it’s better than doing that other thing…”  God says there are two sides of truth.  The side of truth, and the other side.   Those on the side of truth, listen to Jesus Christ (John 18:37) – they accept the Word of God as true.  Those who deny the Word of God, deny the truth, and when you deny truth, you deny Christ.  Once you are opposed to truth, you are opposed to God, His Word, Jesus Christ.  Every lie is anti-Christ, anti-truth, and anti-life.  Because He is the way the truth and the life, the only way to come to the Father – is through Jesus, the truth.  The devil tries to get people to believe a lie is the truth.  That’s why lies and deception are rampant in our culture, even in the church.  There are those who defend doing what God says is sin, and even call it ‘moral’ or ‘good.’ God calls them foolish.  Some people rank sins.  One not as bad as another.  Some people justify sin, and even claim that God is for it, or God made it, or made them that way so it must be ok.  They believe that you can still do that sin, and believe in God, or be a Christian (whatever their favorite sin is.).  What about you?  It’s easy to see others who do that, but have you ever asked God to reveal where you do that too?  God sent Jesus to die to save us from our sins, not save us to sin.  If you keep sinning, what are you saved from? And what are you saved for?  That’s not freedom.  That’s not freedom from sin, that’s remaining in bondage to it.  Paul said, Should we keep sinning so grace might abound?  God forbid!  If sin is OK, then Jesus died for nothing.  God says different.  I John 3:6 – No one who lives in him keeps on sinning.  No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.  Dear children, do not let anyone deceive you.  The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.  The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.  No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.  This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are:  Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.  For this is the message you heard from the beginning:  We should love one another.  Part of love is speaking the truth in love, to yourself first, and then others.  Be careful, don’t let the devil use this verse as a guilt trip as if there is no hope for you because of what you have done.  God forgives.  Your flesh tends to sin, that’s why you need to choose His grace – to say No to it. (Titus 2:12)  If you feed the flesh more than your spirit – you will get caught up in sin.  That’s not the same as continuing in it.  If you repent quickly and turn from it, and ask God to forgive you, He will!  God will forgive you and give you the strength to choose his grace to overcome the next time.  This is talking about people who reject God’s word and justify the sin they want to continue in.  Some people try to match the Word of God to their beliefs and behavior – rather than conform their behavior and what they believe, to God’s Word.  And it’s so easy for me to see your sin as bad, and my sin as ok.  Yours is worse than mine.  God doesn’t rank sins like we do.  Anything less than what God said, or God’s best  - is sin.  We are all prone to sin because of the sin nature we will carry until we get our new bodies one day in heaven.  Until then we will battle the flesh, but the good news is this!  God is bigger than the devil.  God’s truth is stronger than the devil’s lie, and His Grace is sufficient for you!  Don’t condemn anyone just because they sin.  But for the grace of God everyone is trapped in sin.  God just offers freedom from sin, not freedom to sin.  That’s why those who truly believe in Christ, and are filled with His Spirit – and choose His grace to overcome sin, don’t accept sin, they reject it, and hate it.  Just because you love people, who sin and believe it’s ok, even moral and right, doesn’t mean that sin is ok.  God hates it, you can’t live in sin, and say you love God.  And God loves those people too – even the ones that hate Him.  He longs for them to turn, so they can be set free from sin.  One day if they don’t turn, they will be eternally separate from God.  Then they will see that the devil deceived them, they got punked, and now they are in outer darkness for all of eternity, without hope.  So those that hate you for telling them the truth, don’t hate them, love them.  We were all deceived before Jesus set us free from sin.  God can set you free from sin, if you want to be free.  If you don’t – what God died to give you – freedom from sin, you forfeit along with the grace that could be yours.  Sin is a scary thing.  One is not worse than another, each of us needs to examine ourselves. And ask God by His Holy Spirit to reveal if we are still walking in the grace of God, or are compromised with sin.  The first thing is to accept God’s Word as truth.  What God calls sin – call it the same, or you don’t really believe in God, you believe in you.  Jesus said, you’ve heard it said, do not murder, but I tell you anyone who hates his brother in his heart, it’s like murder.  “Well I don’t believe that… I think we should love our friends and hate our enemies.”  That’s believing what you want, not what God says.  God says anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her in his heart is like committing adultery.  But others say – just because I’ve placed my order, doesn’t mean I can’t look at the menu… (what verse is that?)  If you don’t believe what God says, you will believe what the devil says. You’ll make up your own beliefs.  Whatever you say, you will believe.  We can be quick to condemn others of their sin, quick to recognize the spec in someone else’s eye, but fail to recognize the log in our own.  David’s heart, a heart after God, prayed this.  “Search me O God, and know my heart, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  That means – you should ask God, “Is there anything in me – in my belief system, that I believe to be true - that is not true?  Am I standing for something - that you stand against? Or that you are not standing for?”  Here is where the rubber meets the road -  When faced with truth, are you willing to change?  Are you willing to accept God’s Word as truth, and no longer believe - what you believed was true?  Ask the Holy Spirit, He will show you.    Praying that you will always know truth, that sets you free, that you will never accept the devil’s lie as truth.  That you would always respond with humility when the Holy Spirit reveals truth to you, that you might have missed.  Praying that the Truth of God’s Word will establish you in His good.  That nothing in you would be less than His Word, and His Plan, and His best.  Praying for what the world needs now, truth.  So they can know the God who loves them.  Praying that you will share the truth in love.  So God can save one more.  That’s what he’s waiting for…     
 
Love you all,
dad