An absolute

There's been a question popping up inside my mind a lot. It bugs me because this summer I was introduced to a feeling of full faith. Without question. God spoke to me in a way that I couldn’t deny it. With that truth came a joy and a freedom that I will never be able to express in words. It was like what Jesus said in John 8:32, “And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” This is why I encourage everyone to seek truth. Because when you find him, this person of truth, he does give you a freedom that is so amazingly beautiful.

Since the summer, the world has been changing my view. Which kind of sucks. The world is full of voices that claim to be truth. The world is full of voices that claim that they will give you this freedom and this joy that I know that only the father can grant. Its hard for Christians, especially teenagers in high school to go through these years and not be deceived by the lies that are always upon us. Its hard for us to maintain an integrity that we know our father would be proud of. Its hard to be in this world and not of it. Our battle is not one that will end while we are on this side of heaven. Even Paul, the one that wrote over half of the New Testament had shown his struggles, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward that goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14.

I'd rather go back to full faith without question. But I know this question was put in my mind, so I would be able to have an answer for my faith for anyone who asks. I know this is a chance for me to grow and a chance to be challenged in a way that will help me be able to protect my heart and mind from the evil one.

The question that has been so persistently in my mind:
Is there such thing as absolute truth?

If you think about it, we all come from different worlds. We all come from different mindsets about this world and how it operates. So, according to this idea, it would seem that everyone is entitled to their own standard, and through that, everyone is entitled to his or her own truth.

Within my group of Christian friends, we all have different opinions on what a life of integrity looks like. We all have different standards and different ideas about the life that God wanted us to lead. We sometimes define this as discipline. A friend of mine for example, feels that yoga isn't right for Christians to partake in. This was something I had never had a problem with and I had actually partaken in yoga before. Granted, of course, I did not have the knowledge of the fact that each yoga pose was a different stance for worshiping a Hindu God. But now that I do know that, I have to ask the question, is that going to change my view of it? I had never believed while I was doing it, that I was a worshiping a Hindu God. But now that I have that knowledge, I cannot simply take it so easily for granted. It would seem, in this case that truth has changed because of new found knowledge.

But, is that possible? Truth is truth- is it not? Truth doesn't change does it? My change in knowledge about yoga seemed to change the truth I believed about yoga. This is where we take a look at the frailty of lies.
Proverbs 12:19: "Truthful words stand the test of time, but lies are soon exposed."

Where truth is constant, lies change frequently.

First of all, lies are all around us. Take a piece of untrue gossip for example. We make it to be true in our mind until someone can prove that it is a lie. Which each new person that receives the piece of gossip comes a new perspective and the story becomes more and more distorted. Gossip changes frequently. It you were to hear a story that is absolute truth however, how often will it change? Never- because truth transcends perspective. The only part of truth that will distort it is our knowledge or perspective of what the truth looks like. And, in that sense, it can no longer be called truth because truth cannot change.

The second point I want to make is that this seems to jive with everything that God says about his personality. He calls Himself a rock, unchangeable, faithful. Throughout his word, we see the truth of these claims. He is constant and does not change. Paul says in Titus 1:2: “…-A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time…”

Jesus said himself, "I am the way, THE TRUTH, and the life..." he explicitly says that he is truth. Because I believe that whatever God says is truth, if Jesus says he is truth and those words came from his father, who speaks truth, it must be absolute truth. What does that mean though? How does Jesus being truth affect us?

If Jesus is truth, than that must imply that whatever he says must be truth as well. That affects our whole perception of who Jesus is and who God is. Jesus, made a ton of claims while he was on earth, and in John especially, we see that a high percentage of them are claims about his father- claims about God. In chapter 5 verse 31-36, Jesus says, “If I testify about myself, my testimony in not valid. There is another who testifies in my favor and I know that his testimony about me is valid… I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the work that the Father had given me to finish, and which I am doing testifies that the Father has sent me.”

If you believe in the truth of Jesus, than you have no choice but to believe in the truth of God. Each entity proves the other. If you believe in the truth of God than you must believe that the bible is true and if you believe in the truth of the bible, than you must believe that there is a God who desires to be with us, to see life change in us, who wants us to go out and make disciples of many nations.

But what about for those who don't believe in this truth that I believe? Does the fact that we are all humans with the ability to form opinions fight against the idea of absolute truth? God's word also says that he is the one who granted us freedom of thought, opinion and action. He is the one who said to his children, yes I have given you the truth to believe in, but it’s your choice to believe. It’s your choice to acknowledge that I am God, that I am real, that I am absolute truth.

Can I make an argument within this quest for truth that points to the God that I believe in? Can I say in a totally unbiased mindset that everyone on earth should believe the God that I believe because I believe he is truth? As much as I would love it for everyone to believe the truth I believe, that doesn’t make it truth until they find it for themselves. Going back to my yoga example, truth wasn’t truth to me until I saw or heard or experienced it for my own eyes.

What I can conclude from this that there is an absolute truth. There is a truth that cannot be changed by perspective. God is truth. Jesus is truth. The bible is truth.

Saying that, I also must conclude that we live in a world where truth is hard to find. It will ever be distorted by perspective. Distorted by small changes that turn it into lies. The question I now must take into account is Am I going to be a representative of God- a representative of truth, to a world that is full of lies? Am I going to encourage truth seekers? Am I going to take this freedom that I’ve found through the discovery of truth and share it?

Are you?