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What is truth?

/ EllieJ

Pilate looked at Jesus and said, “What is truth?”

As silence filled the room, Pilate went back out to where the Jewish leaders were waiting and said to them, “He’s not guilty. I couldn’t even find one fault with him.

John 18:38 (TPT)

What is truth? could very well be the most imperative question in society today. In a world of my truth and your truth, what is the truth?

TRUTH: Conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or has been, or shall be.

Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language

The fact that Pilate felt the need to pose his question before Jesus leads me to believe that truth was as difficult to find in ancient Jerusalem as it is today. Many people will tell you what they believe the truth to be, but how much of that believe system is actually true?

It is the personal responsibilty of each individual to discover truth for ourselves. We cannot depend on what others may know or think they know or even want to know. In the end, we are all accountable for what we know—intimately experience.

Truth goes beyond fact. Jesus declared Himself to be the Truth.

Jesus explained, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, and I am the Life. No one comes next to the Father except through union with me. To know me is to know my Father too.

John 14:6 (TPT)

The Passion Translation footnote says that the Truth is the True Reality. What we see and experience in this plane of existence isn’t Truth. It’s a shadow. Jesus, the Light of the World, is the lamp that guides the way to Truth—Himself.

Pilate may have been sarcastic in his question, he may have just thrown it out there, or maybe he really wanted to know. We cannot know his attitude, but we can (and should) know our own. Do we really want to know the Truth? Or are we content in our blindness? We need to be willing to let go of what we think we know if we ever expect to know the True Reality.

If anyone comes to Me (responds to the good news of the kingdom), and does not hate (release attachment to) his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sistersm, yes, and even his own life (all the masks we cling to in relationship to others and ourselves), he cannot be my disciple. (Cannot follow Yeshua into an experience of the kingdom now present within all.)

Luke 14:26 (NASB), amplification by Ted Dekker, Rise of the Mystics

As a bit of a celebration for my first post in this new season, readers can download for free my visual commentary page for John 18:38. One day there may be a complete commentary, but for now, it’s simply verse-by-verse.

Visual Commentary – John 18:38Download

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Yea or nay

/ EllieJ

Read: Deuteronomy 17-19, Mark 14:1-25

I have a nephew starting tenth grade next year. He’s already had to select his courses for the fall. He has options. Lots of options. In a course guide of over seventy pages, he is already expected to know what he wants to do with the rest of his life so that he can choose the right classes that will properly set him on his life path. But choices are good. It means that he has opportunity. He can get ahead in life. He’s smart. He can take university level classes before he’s even out of high school, gain early admission, and apply for just about any scholarship he wants.

In secondary education, choices are great. Lots of options means nearly limitless career paths. Choices are also great when it comes to things like electronic devices, insurance, clothing, and a plethora of other things in life where we want something that suits us as individuals.

But this becomes an issue when we expect to have the same infinite choices in our faith.

While they were eating, Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, “Take it; this is my body.”

Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them.

Mark 14:22-24 (NIV)

Jesus made one offer. He held the cup before his disciples and gave them the choice to drink it or leave it.

The word [covenant] refers not to an agreement between to equals but rather to an arrangement established by one party, in this case God. The other party—man—cannot alter it; he can only accept it or reject it.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary

Like checking out the list of options stuck to the window of a new car, we want to look at Christianity and pick the path that ticks most or all of the boxes on our list. But there is no list. Just two boxes. Yea or nay. Take it or leave it.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 (NIV)

Whereas my nephew struggled to choose which options he would take to set him on the right path, we have no such struggle. It is simply a matter of yes or no. Will we accept the cup Jesus has offered and walk the path to the Father with him? Or will we deny the cup and stray from the path altogether?

When God set Israel on the path to the Promised Land, He set before them life and death, blessings and curses. Then he told them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). How simple is that? God offers us two choices and then he tells us which one to choose—the one that leads to life.

The only way

/ EllieJ

Read: Leviticus 22-23, Mark 1:1-22

Yesterday we talked about how faith can’t be done our way. There is only one my way when it comes to faith in Christ and it’s not ours. It literally is my way (Jesus’ narrow way that leads to eternal life) or the highway (the broad way that leads to nowhere good). But what does Jesus’ way look like?

Before we get into anything more, I want to set the stage.

We all live our lives through filters. It’s a fact. No two people will experience the same event in the same way. Previous experience will change our future experience. Other things like what we hope or long for, our values and beliefs, what we read or watch will all affect how we perceive a certain situation or event.

Yesterday I began reading The Way Back: How Christians Blew Our Credibility and How We Get It Back by Phil Cooke and Jonathan Bock (a book I would highly recommend to anyone claiming to be a believer). It is through the filter of the first few chapters of that book that I read today’s scripture.

In The Way Back, the authors began to approach the trouble with church these days from the perspective of marketing. Since the western church as a whole has been in a massive free fall over the last half-century or so, surely the problem must be with how we are presenting the Gospel. As it turns out, it’s not nearly so much an issue with the marketing as it is with the product. Not Jesus. There is nothing wrong with Jesus. Maybe product placement is a better term. The saying goes that, for most, the only Jesus they will ever see is the Church—you. Well, Church, we’ve done a bang-up job of marketing. We’ve made ourselves so appealing that we now look so much like the world that they can’t even find Jesus!

In an effort to appeal to the masses, the church has become a part of the masses, now barely distinguishable from many secular gatherings. This is not the church or the life Jesus presented to us.

Mark 1:17-18

Jesus called. Simon and Andrew dropped what they were doing and followed. James and John did the same a couple of verses later (Mark 1:20). We’ve been going about this Christian thing backwards trying to fit Jesus into our neatly defined lives rather than allowing our relationship with him to redefine our lives.

When asked how they would describe Christians, unbelievers used terms like: hypocritical, judgmental, harsh, power-hungry, phony, insensitive, bigoted, reactionary, and exclusive. But those aren’t the descriptors we were given.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)

If you must, read through the Gospels again. You’ll find that Jesus never did anything to appease the current culture. He pretty much did everything completely counter to it. When pressed to take a stronger leadership role, he’d disappear. When he performed a great miracle, he didn’t take a selfie with the freshly-raised to life and post it to social media; he told that person not to tell anyone.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

If we have truly made the decision to follow Christ and, as his disciples, become fishers of men, what does that look like? Does it mean we go about our daily lives and hope someone notices a minute change in our character? Or do we leave the old life and all its trappings on the shore to do things his way. The Only Way.

My way

/ EllieJ

Read: Leviticus 20-21, Matthew 28:1-20

In 1969, Frank Sinatra made a hit out of the song My Way and still holds the record for most consecutive weeks on the UK Top 40. Since then, numerous singers and bands have covered the tune. It is the song most frequently played at funeral services in the UK. The lyrics belt out how, even when life got rough, I did it my way. For many, it has become their anthem, a song that carries them through every aspect of their life. Even faith. Or so they believe.

I love Frank Sinatra. He had one of the easiest voices to listen to and the prettiest blue eyes to match. But he was wrong. Doing things your way may be able to get you through a lot of things in life, but it can’t get you through all of life. Your way may not be the best way. It may not be any way at all.

Leviticus 20:8

Humanity strives to find meaning. We push ahead to be—or at least be seen—as more than we are. Many want to be something they are not and try to become so on their own terms. But there are some things we just can’t do on our own. We cannot save ourselves. Only Jesus can save us. We cannot make ourselves holy. Only God can make us holy.

All paths lead to God is a phrase I’ve heard from celebrities, new agers, mystics, and even Christians. Many have been made to believe that, no matter how they want to live their life, so long as they believe that they will get to God, that’s just fine. Nothing needs to change. Yet they forget where holiness comes from. They forget that there is only one way to salvation and it isn’t through themselves.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 (NIV)

In Leviticus 10, Aaron’s sons decided to try things their own way. It didn’t end well for them.

So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

Leviticus 10:2 (NIV)

We have all sinned. We have all fallen short. And none of us can fix that on our own. God knows that. It’s why He sent Jesus to make a way where there was no way. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples to go and make more disciples and to teach them to obey all that he had commanded them (Matthew 28:19-20).

If you want to do your own thing in life, that’s great! We need original people who aren’t afraid to put in some hard work to be successful. But in our search for success, we cannot forget that there are some things that are not up to us. When it comes to salvation and our approach to God, there is no my way. There is only The Way.

Find the time

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

I recently had my father and two of my nephews in the car. We were heading out to watch another of my nephews (I have seven nephews) play football. We’d barely pulled off the street when I looked back to see the older of the two pull a video game out of his pocket. I asked my dad if he was supposed to have it. He’d been told to leave it at home.

“Hey, Kiddo,” I said reaching back. “You’re not supposed to have that. Hand it over.”

“Well, I guess I forgot I had it in my pocket.” (The flaw in this story was the speed in which he pulled it out of his pocket once we started driving.) He handed it over and I put in the console of the car. When it slipped out, I had my dad put it in his pocket.

When we got home later that evening, my nephew wouldn’t get out of the car. He was squishing himself between the front seats reaching for the console—where he’d last seen his video game. In a matter of minutes, he forgot that it was in his pocket, but over several hours, he didn’t forget where he’d seen me put it…

Those who are wise will find a time and a way to do what is right.

Ecclesiastes 8:5b (NLT)

My nephew is eight years old. And he’s smart. Really smart. But still largely lacking in the wisdom department. He had a desired outcome—to have his game with him when we left the house. In order to get to that outcome, the cost was willful disobedience and a lie to try to cover it up.

Most of us would look at this situation and shake our heads. Yet, we’ve probably done something similar in our adult lives. There is an outcome we desire and we make some decisions to get there. A few people may get hurt or shunned along the way, but we plow ahead on the most direct route to get what we want. But what if there was a less direct way to get there? What if we didn’t have to hurt someone to get it? The wisest course of action isn’t always the most direct and, sometimes, it’s taking no action at all.

Wisdom takes the time looks at the outcome, determines whether it is necessary or not, then determines the best way to either go after it or avoid it altogether.

We must all make choices on a daily basis. It is wisdom that will lead us to do what is right. Wisdom finds right the time and the right way to do it.

Daily Bible reading: Ecclesiastes 7-9, 2 Corinthians 11:1-15

A way out

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

Do you can do whatever you want to do. You can say whatever you want to say. You can feel whatever you want to feel. You can be whatever you want to be.

These are all ideas that are being thrust at as all the time. At first glance, they seem great. Yeah, I can do what I want to do! But what about what we are called to do?

Just because a feeling pops up or you want to say something or you want to be something doesn’t meant those are things that you should feel, say, or be. Our sinful, selfish natures will lead us to do things that are completely contrary to God’s will and plan for our lives. While the world would have us cater to ourselves, God would have us fight against those temptations.

But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.

1 Corinthians 10:13 (NLT)

You mean I don’t get to do or say what I want? No, you don’t have to do or say what you want. Look at the people who live completely for themselves. Are they truly happy? Are they completely fulfilled? Or are they chasing one temptation after another looking for something they’ll never find as long as they pursue that path?

There is something to be said for restraint and resistance. Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians and David addressed it in the Psalms.

Take control of what I say, O Lord,
and keep my lips sealed.
Don’t let me lust for evil things;
don’t let me participate in acts of wickedness.
Don’t let me share in the delicacies of those who do evil.

Psalm 141:3-4 (NLT)

Giving up control, even a little, is something we naturally want to fight against. We want things our own way! We all fight to gain control, but what does that truly get us?

We can pursue our own selfish whims or we can pursue God. We cannot do both. But giving up selfish desires isn’t resigning ourselves to a life of passionless boredom. By turning away from the endless pursuit of worldly pleasures, we enable ourselves to walk a path that was laid out for each of us as individuals before we were even born. We don’t have to go on a search to find ourselves. We are found in Christ. He has a plan and a purpose for us.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God!
They are innumerable!
I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up in the morning,
you are still with me!

Psalm 139:17-18 (NLT)

We can wander aimlessly through life looking for the next bit of pleasure, never quite being fulfilled, or we can give up that search and find lasting, eternal fulfillment with the One who has already planned our days for us.

You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

Psalm 139:16 (NLT)

Daily Bible reading: Psalm 139-141, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

What is truth?

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

Once upon a time, there was truth. And there were lies. A great wall stood between the two and that wall could not be broken down and it could not be scaled. No one questioned the existence of the wall because it had always been there.

But one day, someone decided to build another wall. Then another. These new walls were great, but not as great as the original wall. Soon more and more walls were being built and so many walls of every shape and size existed that the original wall was almost completely obscured.

When a very wise man claimed that he was Truth, some believed him. Others did not. Truth had set out to destroy all the other walls. Those who did not believe in the Truth liked their other walls better than the original wall and they set out to destroy Truth. They brought him to a powerful man who asked, “What is truth?”

The Truth had said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

The powerful man could find no fault in the Truth and sent him away. Those who did not believe in Truth eventually won their battle against him and put him to death. But they didn’t realise that Truth had already planned for this outcome.

When Truth died, the Spirit of truth came. And the Spirit of truth did not rest on just one person, but all those who believed in Truth. That Spirit of truth guided the believers into all truth. Their eyes were opened to see beyond all the other walls and the original wall became clear.

To this day, new walls are being built. The original wall still exists, but for those who do not have the Spirit of truth, it cannot be seen. The land is filled with walls and people on every side. Only the true believers still know which side is Truth.

Daily Bible reading: 2 Chronicles 32-33, John 18:24-40

The Light that leads to Life

/ EllieJ / 1 Comment

The more I read my Bible, the more I understand how pastors are always saying that everything in the Word points to Jesus—both Old and New Testaments. I’ve written much about John 1 and Genesis 1 and the many, many links between the two. Today, we’re going to expand that thought even further.

Jesus said to the people, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

John 8:12 (NLT)

When God first said, “Let there be light!”, it wasn’t the sun that appeared in the sky. It was Jesus who went forth from heaven to join the Spirit that had been hovering over the surface of the deep. Jesus truly was, is, and will forever be the light of the world. And that Light leads to Life.

Your word is a lamp for my feet
and a light for my path.

Psalm 119:105 (NLT)

Your word. Jesus is the Word. A light for my path. Jesus is the Light.

The path is circular; when we accept Jesus into our lives, he fills us—the Spirit fills us. Jesus is light and he is life and he is truth. The light—Jesus—within us illuminates our path and that path leads to life—Jesus.

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 (NLT)

Jesus is the path. He is the lamp that lights the path and he is the life that the path leads to.

There is so much more to this than what I can type in just a few paragraphs. Read it for yourself. One verse will lead to another which will lead to another. And they will all lead you to Jesus.

Daily Bible reading: 1 Chronicles 3-5, John 8:1-20

The choice

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

You make thousands of choices every day. Whether big or small, every choice has a consequence. If I choose to hit the snooze button one more time, the consequence it that I will have to rush to get ready to leave the house. If I choose to skip breakfast, the consequence is that my stomach will be growling long before lunch. If I choose to push through a yellow light, the consequences could be dire for myself or others. Every choice we make has the potential to alter the direction of our lives.

But there is one choice that Someone has already offered us a decision for.

Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, that you and your descendants might live!

Deuteronomy 30:19 (NLT)

Oh, that you would choose life! When given the choice between blessings and curses, I don’t know why anyone would ever opt for the latter. It should be an easy decision to make. Yet there are those who believe there is a third choice—that neither the blessings or the curses really exist and that they are exempt from the truth of these words and therefore no choice must me made at all.

Let none of those who hear the warnings of this curse consider themselves immune, thinking, “I am safe, even though I am walking in my own stubborn way.” This would lead to utter ruin!

Deuteronomy 29:19 (NLT)

Yes, I know that theses are Old Covenant verses—that God was speaking to Israel, but Jesus backs up the same idea.

Jesus told them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 (NLT)

There is one way. Life or death. Once you have heard the Gospel, even not making a choice is really making a choice. The concept is not difficult and the message is simple.

This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand or perform. It is not up in heaven, so distant that you must ask, “Who will go to heaven and bring it down so we can hear and obey it?” It is not beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, “Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear and obey it?” The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 (NLT)

If you have not already made the choice, oh, that you would choose life! You don’t have to understand it all to accept it. I doubt that anyone ever has. Make the choice for life and then you can spend the rest of yours seeking after the heart of God, discovering the blessings that wait for you there.

Daily Bible reading: Deuteronomy 29-30, Mark 16

One Way

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

Did you know that God has only one set of standards? He’s not like us where we allow different people to approach in different ways simply because of who they are or where they’re from.

Way back in Numbers when God was giving instructions regarding offerings and sacrifice, He made sure to specify that these rules applied for Israelite and foreigner alike. There was no second set of rules for the foreigner. So long as they were in the camp and chose to abide by the law laid out by the Lord, the same rules applied to them.

There was only one way to forgiveness.

Jesus reiterated the very same idea when he stated:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

John 14:6 (NLT)

There is only one way. When Israel tried to get to God on their own, they failed miserably and were punished for it and were refused entry into the Promised Land. Our Promised Land is Heaven. The only way in is through Jesus. There is no other way. We cannot get to God on or own or by any other way man may try.

God is a one-way God.

But remember, just because there is only one way doesn’t mean it’s a hard way. Jesus paved a one way highway to the Promised Land. All we have to do is get on it.

Daily Bible reading: Numbers 14-15, Mark 6:1-32