What is truth? Where can we find it?
I love words. So, I went to the dictionary to find out what truth means to people. It tells me that truth is five things. It is: 1. the body of real things, events, and facts; 2. the state of being the case; 3. a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true; 4. sincerity in action, character, and utterance; and 5. a transcendent fundamental or spiritual, God, the supreme ruler of ultimate reality.
The problem we have today is that the first four definitions can be skewed as to what we want to think. Notice, what we think is not on the list of what truth is.
I propose only the last two answers are right. Truth is what God says is truth. Truth is what God says is a fundamental, spiritual reality.
Truth Embodied
We as Christians believe that Jesus Christ is truth embodied. He told Thomas, in John 14:6 (AMP), “I am the [only] Way [to God] and the [real] Truth and the [real] Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
He goes on to tell the disciples in John 14:15-17: “If you [really] love Me, you will keep and obey My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.”
Truth is still coming to us from Jesus through the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ. For the disciples, this was much more difficult to understand. They could see Jesus. They could touch Jesus. They could hear Jesus, but what about this nebulous person called the Holy Spirit?
Jesus and the Holy Spirit
In John 14:26, Jesus says, “But the Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will help you remember everything that I have told you.”
What He was telling the disciples was that He and the Holy Spirit are acting in one accord. Jesus is truth because He is the member of the Godhead who came to us as a person like us.
He is the one who knows us completely because He has experienced all that we have. When He tells us He will strengthen us through the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe that because we know Jesus was strengthened by that same Spirit.
Why Did I Base My Life on a Lie?
Here’s the big question I had to ask myself: If I believe that Jesus is the truth, why for years did I base my life on a lie? I looked back over my life and saw that my entire life, up to about 2009, had been based on a foundational lie that foods made with processed sugar and flour were necessary for my survival. I felt they were necessary to help me keep my emotions in check, to ease any pain, anger, shame or fear and to help me maintain a calm demeanor.
Living in the midst of this lie is what kept me stuck in super morbid obesity for years. I had chosen to eat those kinds of foods as my coping mechanism to deal with life. I didn’t want to see the truth.
I didn’t want to understand or accept the truth. I pushed it away because that might mean I’d have to give up the foods I had come to love more than anything. Pushing the lie away only made room for more lies to come alongside it to prop it up. Then, the truth got so buried I didn’t know if I could ever find it.
I thought if I stopped eating those kinds of foods, my world would crumble around me without being able to indulge in what had become my crutch. Once I began to believe my own lie, I had to tell myself other lies so I could keep up some vestige of being a put-together Christian. In doing this, I was ignoring some basic core truths about God.
Breaking Strongholds
Breaking free of lies is impossible on our own. We first have to recognize we are living in a house of cards that can topple at any moment. This is hard when we’ve been carefully constructing our dream house built of pretty, little lies. We’ve put every block in place exactly as we want it and we don’t want anyone, not even God, messing with what we feel is working. The problem is, it’s not working.
I was about to go through the arduous task of uncovering not just the lies I believed, but how those had become specific strongholds God wanted broken and replaced with His truth. These strongholds were going to have to be broken before I could surrender completely to God.
I had to learn how to fit all my loose thoughts, emotions and impulses into the structure of life shaped by God’s Son, Jesus. Instead of believing lies, I had to take my thoughts, feelings and impulses captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5, MSG).
God was more than willing to teach me His truths, which would break the strongholds I had allowed to be erected in my life. He knew this would bring me closer to fulfilling the destiny He had planned for me.
He would lead me. I just had to be willing to listen. {eoa}
Teresa Shields Parker is the author of six books and two study guides, including her No. 1 bestseller, Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds. Her sixth book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds, is live on Amazon. She blogs at teresashieldsparker.com. She is also a Christian weight loss coach (check out her coaching group at Overcomers Academy) and speaker. Don’t miss her podcast, Sweet Grace for Your Journey, available on CPN. This article first appeared on teresashieldsparker.com.
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