Truth. Seems like a simple enough word. When we look at it written down it is a short
five letter construction that has no appearance of menace, no hint of the
conflagration of debate it has the ability to set off. Yet, it is perhaps one of the most important
words of our post-modern era.

I
am deeply fascinated by truth. I think
about it often, especially in the early morning hours when my inability to
sleep has me pondering questions such as “Is it possible to formulate a
singular and accurate description of reality?” I know that most people reading this may have just groaned or mocked me,
but such questions occupy my head, and to be honest I enjoy them. The question of absolute truth is one that I
come to again and again, and I believe it is an important one. Particularly for Christians this question is
not one that can be taken lightly. Jesus
does not allow us a laissez-faire option. He routinely made claims and promises that demand acceptance or rejection.

My
goal in this foray of writing is not to get lost in a discussion about
post-modernism, but it must be given at least an honourable mention. This slippery eel of a worldview has some
very strong perspectives on our little word, truth. In its quest for tolerance it suggests that
all truths hold validity in that they are truth to those who believe them. At the same time post-modernism, as I
understand it, would also suggest that truth itself is a suspicious character that
has emerged as a result of human construction, a social construct that is used
to explain the mysterious world we find ourselves wandering about in. Without getting into a debate about tolerance
vs. acceptance, let us consider the latter perspective for a moment.

As
Christians we hold some very distinct beliefs about the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. These beliefs we hold to be
bedrock truth, that is to say we consider them to be one hundred percent
accurate descriptions of reality. For
example: the Father spoke and the earth and the cosmos came into existence;
Jesus Christ was born of a virgin; Jesus Christ died on the cross, and Jesus
Christ rose from the dead; at Pentecost Holy Spirit was poured out and the very
presence of God began to indwell men and women. Post-modernism’s suggestion that these, and the rest of the Christian
belief system, are the results of social construction presents an alarming
challenge to our faith. We come to the
short yet complex question: Is the story of Jesus resultant of millennia of
active social construction taking place over generations and across cultures or
is it the truth? Our answer to that question is vital, for
either we believe in what is a reality or we are living our lives according to
an illusion.

I am not comfortable with the assertion that
my friend and king Jesus is not truly alive and that he is, rather a mythical
social construct that I am deluded in believing in. How much bolder can I make that
statement? Either Jesus Christ is the
son of God in truth (in the strongest possible sense of that little word) or he
is not real. Post-modernism can keep its
explanation of truth to itself: I want
what is real, not something constructed that in the end is only illusory.

Of
course I believe in the truth of the Gospel, of the Word of God in its
entirety. This belief has grown over
time, with age and experience. I have
met the carpenter from Galilee and am fully convinced of his reality. 

I’ve already
written more about post-modernism than I wanted to, so I will leave it behind
for now. What I really want to get at is
the importance of knowing and believing the absolute truth(s) about who God
is.

Lately,
I have found myself becoming increasingly fascinated by God. Who is this guy? What is he like? I mean: What is he really like? We all grow up developing our own perceptions
and opinions about him based on many varying sources. Our parents, our experiences, what life
throws at us, what we’ve been taught, and what we’ve observed in others
etc… All these influences weave together
a paradigm, a lens through which we peer at this mysterious character who sits
on the throne of heaven, and we relate to him according to our particular
lens. The problem is that our views of
him are not necessarily accurate, and when that happens we will, and do,
misinterpret his words, his actions, and his motives. There must come a time in the believer’s walk
with Jesus when they turn their attention to the paradigm problem and simply
ask: What
is the truth about who you are Father? Then seek out the answer that He gives, accepting it on his terms and as
the truth about himself.

We
are not without the resources we need to answer this question. God’s
word reveals the truth about him. It tells us who our creator is, and
what he
is like. Jesus tells us that if we want
to see the Father, to know what God is like, we need look no further
than Jesus
himself. Our friend and counsellor, Holy
Spirit indwells us with the very presence of the Father and the Son,
revealing
to us who God is and what he is like. To
quote the X-Files: The truth is out there, or rather it is out
there and within us as well.

Now
if you have read this far, you might have already asked the question:
So
what? This is old hat! Of course we need to know the truth about who
God is, and who we are in Christ. Isn’t
this part of Christianity 101? Well, yes
and no. The problem is that we may know
much of the truths about who our belief system says God is, but our
paradigms
are in such disrepair that we do not allow those truths to live and
breathe as
we relate to God. There is a prophetic
aroma on the wind that is hinting at the importance of not only knowing
the
truth, but believing and living according to it as well. The paradigm
problem needs to be faced. We need to allow God to begin reweaving and
healing our paradigm lenses so that we begin to see him clearly, to
hear his
voice with clarity and understanding. Part of that healing is to say,
despite a post-modern culture, there are
absolute eternal truths about the character of God that will never
change. He lives and he is consistent in who he is.

Let
me end with a story of sorts. Recently,
I have been walking through a season of life that has been extremely difficult
for me on a personal level. I am not
ashamed to say that it has been quite dark, frustrating, and a hard
struggle. As I write this I am still in
the midst of this season, and quite frankly I cannot see the end of it
happening any time soon. There are two
options that have lain before me from the outset of this season in my
life. The first is of course to
surrender completely to hopelessness, anger, depression, and whatever other
negative words you want to add. The
second, the more unlikely, is to be asking my heavenly Father just what the
heck is going on? What good is this
season? But, this, somehow, is what I
have managed to do. And the answer has
come back in a powerful way, not only an answer, but a transformation with
it. I still feel somewhat confused by
where I have ended up. Out of this dark
and challenging time in my life I have inexorably come to the conclusion that
God is Faithful. This conviction is so
strong within my mind and spirit that those three words fill me with…well a
feeling that is difficult to describe. I
want to shout it from the roof tops, declare it wherever I am given a
voice. Hear and know this truth: God Is
Faithful. His faithfulness cannot and
will not ever fail. In a recent sermon
at my church I made the following statement without really thinking about what
I was saying: “God is faithful! If a meteor should come crashing through this
ceiling and crush me dead up here on this stage…God is still faithful!”

Afterwards I thought about that. Sounds a little nutty, but you know
what? I can genuinely say to you that I
believe that statement. It may be extreme, but for me the truth of God’s
faithfulness really does go that far.

This
is but one example of discovering on a far deeper level the truth about who God
is and the difference that discovery makes in our lives.  I now know that no matter how long the
difficult season that I am in lasts, I will be able to endure and come out of
it as an over comer, because I know that my Father in heaven is truly faithful.

The
truth is important. Knowing the truth
about our God and believing it is what allows us to answer the call of Jesus on
our lives. We are meant to be the people
of his kingdom. That should make us different;
it should mark us as being strange in the eyes of the world. The world should look at us and be bothered
because we believe in the truth of who God is and live according to that truth,
no matter what happens. We know that he
does not change. This is so important in
a culture that is struggling to believe that there could possibly even be such
a thing as real truth.

I’ll
leave you with the words of a far wiser man than me. French theologian and writer Jacques Elul
writes in his book The Presence of the Kingdom:

“To
be the salt of the earth is a precise reference to Leviticus 2:13, where we are
told that salt is the sign of the covenant between God and Israel.

Thus, in the sight of men and in the reality
of this world, the Christian is a visible sign of the new covenant which God
has made with this world in Jesus Christ. But it is essential that the Christian should really be this sign, that is to say, that in
his life and his words he should allow this covenant to be manifest in the eyes
of men.”

Part
of being a sign in our world is to be those who stand up and declare the
absolute truths about who our heavenly Father is and what he is really like.

Eric H Janzen July 10, 2006