Do You Believe The Truth?

jbearnolimits

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Ok, so I have been looking around here and seeing some things that make me cringe. There are so many beliefs that conflict with each other. Mine conflicts with yours and yours with mine. So I was thinking of why it is so hard to share what I know to be true through scriptures.

It seems like everything and every truth in scripture can be spoken against. I have noticed that normally what happens is you find out that someone believes something that isn't true. Then as you try to explain why it isn't true you find out they can not accept that because of another thing that they believe which they believe validates their view while disproving yours.

The problem is that belief is also not true. So as you try to explain why that belief isn't true you end up hitting the same wall. It is a cycle where one lie leads to another and another and another, until the entire viewpoint has become one big lie.

And then later they find out they have believed a lie and depart from the faith altogether because of it!

There is something I think we need to understand.

Psalm 11:3
3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

1 Corinthians 3:10
10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

John 1:14
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Ok so we see in John that Jesus is the word of God made flesh. He IS what is written in our Bibles. So we see in 1 Corinthians that every doctrine we believe must be built on the foundation of the word of God. And then we see that if we do not have that foundation (the word of God) then the righteous can do nothing...there is no defense or truth for those without a foundation in the Bible.

I think that a lot of why it is so hard to speak the same things is because we don't stand on the same foundation...or at the very least we have tried to build on it with straw lies. So how do we know if our building is true?

It must be tried by fire in the day as the scripture says. Our God is a consuming fire and He is light. Listen to His word even if it goes against what we believe. If we want to know we believe the truth we must read the Bible to see what is truth. I firmly believe that if we read the Bible and questioned what we believe against every scripture while letting the Bible interpret itself we would do well.
 

dragongunner

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Agree. And we sometimes have to be patient one with another. So many have come from so many different "tribes" and have been taught some things that are not true. We sometimes think we have the Truth, but do not. Always being open minded and searching and being willing to say I was wrong about that is a good thing......some people just can't do that though. Some just don't really want to know the truth, have no hunger for it. Others are willing to know but just lack maturity in the scriptures because they are so young. Sometimes people are just very complex......and then there are those that are just plain stubborn and stiff-necked and argue only to argue, but the worse are those who desire to teach, but know not what they say nor what it is that they affirm.
 
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jbearnolimits

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Agree. And we sometimes have to be patient one with another.

This is very true as well. When we are trying to share the truth with someone that has been taught a lie we have to understand that when they fight to hold onto it they are doing nothing wrong. They are fighting for truth...they just don't know what it is yet.

Being longsuffering can be hard to do. I know I have a shorter fuse than I wish when it came to this type of thing. But I am aware that I would also hold onto what I believe to be true. So it makes it easier to relate and wait on people.

At the same time, you are right that this is a two way road. I let go of things I once believed to be true by seeing it for myself in scripture. Sometimes I just need someone to show it to me and be patient as I work out the kinks in my theology.
 
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thesunisout

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Ok so we see in John that Jesus is the word of God made flesh. He IS what is written in our Bibles. So we see in 1 Corinthians that every doctrine we believe must be built on the foundation of the word of God. And then we see that if we do not have that foundation (the word of God) then the righteous can do nothing...there is no defense or truth for those without a foundation in the Bible.

I think that a lot of why it is so hard to speak the same things is because we don't stand on the same foundation...or at the very least we have tried to build on it with straw lies. So how do we know if our building is true?

It must be tried by fire in the day as the scripture says. Our God is a consuming fire and He is light. Listen to His word even if it goes against what we believe. If we want to know we believe the truth we must read the Bible to see what is truth. I firmly believe that if we read the Bible and questioned what we believe against every scripture while letting the Bible interpret itself we would do well.

When you stand on the truth, you will encounter opposition wherever you go. This can even come from our brothers and sisters in Christ, and it isn't a mystery why some Christians will believe a lie:

Hebrews 3:13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Those lies that they believe are the fruit of a heart hardened by sin. There is some sin in their life which they have not repented of which has led them astray, and because of that they are unable to rightly divide the word of truth. As long as they prefer the lie to the truth, they will remain deceived and deluded. That is what the word says, that men preferred darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Whoever does the truth comes to the light so that their deeds are shown to be done in God.

When debating those whose understanding is darkened, remember that you are not battling against flesh and blood; the enemy has strongholds in their life. We are up against a spiritual enemy, but thankfully we have spiritual weapons:

2 Corinthians 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

2 Corinthians 10:5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Whether they believe it or not, the word of God is powerful:

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The word pierces into their hearts regardless of what we may see. When Peter preached after Pentecost, it said that the men there were cut to the heart. In the Greek, the word is actually stronger than the word used to describe the Roman soldier piercing Jesus' side with a spear.

The important thing to remember is, the results aren't to us. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can change their hearts. We must simply be faithful to preach the word and to pray for the person, asking God to deliver them from bondage and grant them repentance. I think we need to look at the example of Paul who was chained for the gospel:

2 Timothy 2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel,
2 Timothy 2:9 for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!
2 Timothy 2:10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

He said he endured everything for the sake of the elect. Later, he tells us that even when we are faithless, Jesus Christ is faithful. It's difficult but we must endure and be compassionate towards the stubborn and obstinate attitudes of those who have departed from sound doctrine. It's the example that Jesus gave to us, when He died for a world that hated Him and the truth that He represented.
 
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tremble

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It must be tried by fire in the day as the scripture says. Our God is a consuming fire and He is light. Listen to His word even if it goes against what we believe.

I resonated most with this comment, because, from what I can see, Jesus was all about change. He wanted us to change from our worldly perspectives to a spiritual perspective.

He talked about being born again, becoming like little children, about falling on the rock and being broken.

He taught us to challenge our greed, our pride and our desire for respectability. To achieve this he asked us to do things which only seem to work against respectability. We should keep our charity secret. We should keep our fasting secret. We should not make a show of our prayers for others to hear. But if we keep these things secret, how will others know that we are good people?

He taught us to be willing to turn our back on friends and family, and to "hate" the emotional pressure they sometimes use to persuade us. He taught us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. He taught us to forsake materialism and break out of the worldly system of working for wages.

He taught that we should be poor in spirit, sometimes being willing to even sleep out on the street or accept charity from others as God's way of providing for us while we work for him. Many Christians today see that as destitution, dirty, undesirable...not respectable, though Jesus himself, the Savior of the world, did such things.

He taught that we should not flatter one another with fancy titles like, "sir", "Mr." etc but that we are all brothers and sisters with the respect going to God alone who is worthy of these titles. I've seen first hand how angry people can become if they are not given these special titles. They claim it's a matter of innocent respect, but they will eventually demand these titles if the point is argued far enough and all "respect" goes flying out the window. They want the titles because it flatters them.

He taught that we should rejoice when people spitefully use us or persecute us. But most of Christianity today (at least in rich western countries) have very little reason to be persecuted. They work in their respectable jobs. They earn their pay check. They take care of their families. They buy, sell, marry and give in marriage. They build, plant and harvest. They practice their hobbies. They go to church. They read their Bibles. They say the right things. There is very little reason to persecute these people because they basically do what everyone else in the world does. There is little difference between them and the average atheist who also does these things, minus the religious rituals.

So much of what is taught by Christians these days are arguments on how to avoid these teachings in one way or another while still giving the appearance of Christianity through religious speech or rituals.
 
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