All the Truth
We can completely trust the Lord to lead us into all truth by His Holy Spirit. All men are liars. Only the Lord is always truthful and cannot lie. God desires us to know the Truth to set us free as well as to have His wisdom in sharing His truth with others. As we desire the truth from God, the attitude of our hearts in searching the scriptures is important to the Lord.
“Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.” Acts 17:11 NKJV
The Bereans examined the Word they were hearing from the disciples to see if it was confirmed in the scriptures. They were listening and searching for truth. They did not search the scriptures with the intent to prove this new message was false. They were not looking for ways to support the truth of their current understanding or to validate their traditions. They were open, teachable, and willing to search the scriptures for confirmation.
Thank God so many were open to our Lord’s new teachings or we would not have a body of believers today! In contrast, Jesus chastised the leaders of His day for their erroneous motives in searching the scriptures. The Lord does not desire Christians to search the scriptures to prove someone wrong, though He has saved more than one unbeliever, such as the well-known author C.S. Lewis, who set out to do just that!
When we are growing spiritually in God’s Holy Spirit school, we recognize and welcome God’s refinement and correction of any erroneous understandings we have had. We ask Father God to grant understanding to our teachable hearts, and even make our hearts teachable if they are not. Can any of us as Christians say that we yet understand as we should? We grow as the truth He teaches us by His spirit continually refines our spirits, working out a more pure comprehension through the fire of His presence.
This is how he creates gold in us, the gold of His nature. He is the Master teacher, always willing to show us His ways that are beyond our human understanding.
“Your faith will be like gold that has been tested in a fire. And these trials will prove that your faith is worth much more than gold that can be destroyed. They will show that you will be given praise and honor and glory when Jesus Christ returns.” 1 Peter 1:7 CEV
We don’t grow when we see only through our biased lens, looking to prove and justify what we already believe. We all have prejudicial, subjective filters residing in our souls—our mind, will, and emotions. Filters are created by our unique life experiences: our religion, personality, family, culture, society, and unique life path. These develop a lens, a way of viewing through which we see life, inevitably limiting what each of us can see, hear, and understand.
Understand this: we do not have the same reality as others. And it is astounding to realize how much our human nature influences what we believe is truth. We can’t help developing our own unique ways of seeing things according to our particular life experiences. In this, too, our God is a consuming fire, an excellent refiner of His own so that our reality is swallowed up in Him.
“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, ‘It is my people’: and they shall say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” Zechariah 13:9 KJV
What we have been taught, what we come to believe, is the pattern of how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us. Our perceptions limit and determine truth.
“All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart.” Proverbs 21:2 BSB
God says that every man is right in his own eyes. One small, but astounding example of perception in reality is the difference in how people living in snowy areas perceive snow. Most of us in the northern midwest US distinguish snow in pretty basic ways: wet snow, heavy snow, fluffy snow, lots of snow. But the Inupiats native to Alaska have for generations survived in the cold world of snow. They see dozens of types of snow, distinguishing various types of snow and its impact upon their world.
When one’s survival depends upon it, we each experience the reality of our surroundings in different ways than others might. Our eventual perception of the reality of snow, or other factors in our existance, is overlaid —limited or expanded—by our learned filters to what we know. This is just one example of how we literally do not see the same world and the basis of much conflict and confusion. There is so much more to the universe than our finite mind can comprehend, but we do have the mind of Christ within us and He is Life.
God is the only true reality, but the life of the spirit does not come easily to mortal man. He is our covering, overlaying and exponentially expanding the believer’s vision of our human reality. The Lord is able to be our vision, as the beloved song “Be Thou My Vision” requests, and thankfully, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Lord cares about and exposes the motives of our hearts as we seek truth. He knows if we really and truly want to understand Him or if we are more intent on justifying ourselves and our beliefs.
Let us see, hear, and understand, as one example, what God said through the great prophet, Isaiah, about an acceptable motive for seeking the Lord for times of fasting and prayer.
“‘[you ask:]’Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’ Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast for contention and strife [to justify yourselves], and to strike with a wicked fist. You do not fast like you have done today to make your voice heard on high! Is it a fast like this that I choose?...Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?...
Is this not the fast that I choose: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the ropes of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke?...
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; You will cry for help, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ if you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness.’” Isaiah 58:1-7; 8-11 NASB
Isaiah chastises the leaders of his time for fasting in a visible way, giving the outward appearance of religious holiness while inside, in their hearts, they are far from it. They are fasting to get their own way, prove their own worth, while continuing to oppress those that work for them. God names each of their wrong motives for fasting and prayer, chastising them for fasting to point the finger of blame rather than to bring redemption to others.
Clearly, God cares a great deal about the motives in our hearts when we fast and pray as well as when we search the scriptures for truth. This is particularly important when someone tells us something different from our established understanding. Do we go to the Lord to teach us His truth, like the Bereans, or seek immediately too expose or condemn the error of this new information? Do we search the scriptures by the spirit with a teachable heart or to justify our position, to prove we are right?
Some do so to defend God, but He needs no defense. Who are we really justifying or defending in these situations? God may lead us to speak His truth to those in error but it must be in His way, speaking the truth in love led by the spirit at the appointed time. We may then share a corrective word when ears are open to hear and the Lord discerns a teachable heart. We’re not to search for truth in order to get more ammunition to challenge others. We have likely all done it at one time or another, but it is not ideal.
We do not have to defend God but we can take a stand for His truth. He will let us know what He would say or do when His truth must be shared. Yes, there are, indeed, foundational truths upon which we are built. Once the foundation is established in our hearts, however, we are encouraged to go on to maturity rather than settling down with what we already have and know. This requires a change:
“Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.” Hebrews 6:1-3 NIV
Our knowledge and understanding of these foundational principles of this faith are established in most Christians. God is faithful to write such essential principles deeply in our hearts so His truth remain unshakable. We know Jesus Christ was a God-man who lived and died on the cross. We know He was resurrected and gifted us with the Holy Spirit within. Through Him, we are saved and have eternal life. We know somewhat of His gifts and callings.
Then we are encouraged to move on. We have no need to search the scriptures or hear message after message to establish these truths again and again in our Christian walk. God takes us forward to maturity, teaching us through daily food to nourish our spiritual bodies for ongoing growth in Him. We pray He will give us this day our daily bread, our daily spiritual food needed to sustain and further the Christ within us to grow into maturity.
We can feast with the Lord daily with continual feedings where the Father and the Son come to sup, to dine with us, as promised. God is continually creating this house of His habitation for His body as we are built up in Him. As we increase in spiritual understanding and knowledge, we grow up into His mature stature. His knowledge, truth and ways are so vast, so beyond our present ability to comprehend, there is always more to learn.
God knows the portion we can absorb and brings what we are ready for. We cannot digest too much meat of the word at once nor when still needing the milk of the word. There are new things God brings to our spiritual minds to be examined with a pure heart to see if they are true. We can trust the Lord to keep us from any error, and there is already plenty of that! There would not be division and strife in the Body if everyone was right.
We may be confronted with His truth that challenges what we have been taught, what we come to believe about His present truth. Much confusion and misunderstanding have arisen about some very popular teachings of doctrine that many Christians have been taught, without examing the word. These doctrines arebased on one or two scriptured and passed down through the traditions of men:
“Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” 2 Corinthians 13:1b NIV
God will provide two or three witnesses from human or scriptural sources when we seek to know what He says about all matters before us. We have been given a clear direction about what the Lord expects of us in order to continue to grow:
“Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.” Lamentations 3:40-41 KJV
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns.” Psalms 139:23 KJV
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Can't you see for yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you--unless you actually fail the test? ” 2 Corinthians 13:5 BSB
Some of us were fortunate to spiritually grow up in a ministry that did not caution us to fear the ministry of other groups or additional sources of spiritual knowledge. Our spiritual leaders trusted God to lead us into all truth, relying on the holy spirit to protect us from error as we learned and grew under their leadership. Such ministers, while guarding their flocks from grievous wolves, do not fear losing their flock to another.
True leaders are servants who lay down their lives for the flock. They see no need to warn or control those in fellowship with them because they trust God as they stand on His word. When some leave the fellowship, God may even be the one leading them away.
“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” John 8:31-32 NASB
God’s truth is making us free. It begins with our faith in His salvation and is a continual process. As more and more truth is written upon our hearts through through the Lord’s direct teaching as well as other wise believers, we are more and more free from the bondage of old ways and beliefs, laws and traditions. In addition to release from our sinful past, we are free from others who want to limit our liberty in Christ.
Hasn’t this been the experience of many of us? We are created for fellowship with Him, learning new things, further refinements of what we believe from His word and spirit daily. Without this, there is no growth, and our entrance into His Kingdom of righteousness, peace, love and joy is limited. We miss the deeper, higher wisdom and understanding of God when we put our stakes down where we are at.
In order to remain in God’s spiritual school, we don’t set up camp, put down stakes, and think we already have all the truth there is. Instead, we are daily freed of old understandings and fleshly ways. Each new truth He reveals makes us more free of the old. Sin and death must loosen their authoritative grasp upon us. God says to search ourselves, to try or test our ways before God. He reveals His truth to even familiar long-held scriptures and even astonishes us as He corrects long-held misconceptions of the scriptures.
After studying and meditating on the Word, have you found yourself saying, “Oh, so that is what that scripture means!” The scriptures are many faceted, with depths most of us have yet to plumb, but this is how we are being made free, to be His true disciples who know the Truth. That’s why Christians continue to read the Bible year after year. Same book, same words, but endless growth and teaching from the holy spirit.
Whether it be fasting, prayer, studying and searching the scriptures, or receiving ministry from others to gain His truth, we are to present ourselves to Him with pure heart motives. We come humbly to the Father as a faithful and maturing son or daughter, hungry to know His ways. We do not come in order to prove ourselves right (pride) and others wrong (revenge), or maintain control (lust ) over another.
These ways only brings contention and strife. God help all of us men and women of God to move past doing battle with each other about the Word. We celebrate the truth that all will come to know the truth. Isaiah prophesied of the Day when all people will come to seek the Lord.
“In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say:
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths, for the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’” Isaiah 2: 2-3 BSB
What a time this will be! Zion represents God’s spiritual government, the highest, holiest and chiefest mountain of God’s house. Here is found the New Jerusalem, descending from heaven to be seen within a people here on this earth. Those who love the Lord and serve Him with their whole hearts are being built into a holy tabernacle where His kingdom is established. If anything that is spiritually presented is new to you, take it to God so that He may lead you in examining the scriptures concerning His truth.
It is an opportunity to seek the Lord as the Bereans did, o seek if these things be true. There need be no fear of error when we leave it in His hands. We all are already in error, anyway. Who can say that we understand all we should, all of the Truth from and about the Creator of the entire universe? Day by day, He teaches us as He writes truth in our hearts. It is His work to correct errors so that we are made free.
God knows everything and is the searcher of the thoughts and intents of the heart. When we examine or test ourselves, it is to see evidence of Jesus Christ within us. God continually reveals the motives in our hearts so we, His people, may have pure hearts without guile. God was training me to act and react according to His truth in love instead of my own selfish senses. How clear it is, over and over, that it is about the heart, the character of Christ within, about which God is most concerned.
o opportunity to know God, let alone understand His ways. Thank the Lord, He exposed my sin to me and corrected it through obedience to Him, but it is embarrassing now to recall how long it took for the Lord to work His truth into my stubborn heart. But this is truly the condition of the human heart in all of us.
“The heart is crooked above all things, and it is mortally ill; who can know it? I am Yahweh Who investigates the heart, Who tests the innermost being, so as to give to each one according to his ways, according to the fruit of his actions.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 CLV
God states unequivocably that the human heart holds the most evil, above all things, and leads to death. Jesus is Truth, the only true and righteous one, our example for addressing all lies and deceptions. He was continually accused unjustly by many ignorant souls who did not know Who He was. Consider all of the opportunities Jesus had to defend Himself when the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of His days on this earth, attacked and discredited Him.
Jesus our Lord did not defend or explain Himself to His enemies. He spoke God’s truth, drawing often from the Law which His opponents knew well, but did not live. Jesus explained His ways to those in intimate fellowship with Him, always speaking only what Father God gave Him. More than once, when the disciples reported disagreements in opposition to Him, Jesus essentially told them to forget about it.
Jesus expected the Jewish religious leaders and their followers to resist and discredit Him. He knew what they were saying as well as what was in their hearts. No one had to tell Him about it. Jesus revealed the ugly, secret motives of their hearts, uncovering what was underneath their outward religious ways. And they hated Him for it.
“But Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, for He knew them all. He did not need any testimony about man, for He knew what was in man.” John 2:24-25 BSB
Isn’t it time for the people of God to allow Him to purge our hearts of any falsity, any hypocrisy? We are not just to talk the talk, but walk the walk! We do this not by more fleshly effort or more good works, but by fully surrendering to the only One who can change our hearts into His heart of love, peace and joy. We are meant to continue on this path of heart-purging as He writes His truth within us, just as He promised.
We are called to be the righteousness of God, the light of the world, not to just make proclamations about our faith. It is His purpose.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 KJV
The Lord has not given us a message of “try harder, do better” like some heavenly motivational speaker. Rather, He is saying in this hour for us to yield, to surrender, to lay down our heavy burdens of self-effort and works, and allow Him to teach us His rest. We are learning to become peacemakers, understanding His ways of making peace, surrendering to His work of change in us with faith in His promises.
We in our flesh cannot do it and the law will never make us righteous. If it could, we would have seen it by now. He is our righteousness and His dwelling within our temple will produce a purified people.
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 NIV
For some, like the religious leaders and well-established Jews of Jesus’ day, it is most difficult to let go of past beliefs when new light is shed on their understanding. The more time, energy, and effort we have invested in it, the harder to allow God to disentangle us from old beliefs, former traditions and rituals that are not His truth. It is a very common battle, won by Jesus Christ Who now fights our battles with the enemy. He knows it all, been tried and tested, obtaining the victory in every matter.
The need to be right, to prove who you are to others, is one of the three tests our Lord passed in His time of trial and temptation when God drew Him into the wilderness before His ministry was established. The devil tempted Him in the wilderness to take action in Himself, to prove who He was. Jesus refused to use the truth in this self-serving way, quoting His Father’s word in rebuke of the enemy.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil…the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ Matthew 4:1;5-7 NIV
Do you notice that the devil is using scripture to deceive? This is his highest and most evil deception, satan’s most powerful spiritual attack upon God’s truth in his arsenal. He excels in getting believers to use parts of scripture for self-interest, to fight with each other over doctrine, to be accusers of the brethren by bringing God’s truth in a deceptive way, knowingly or not.
Jesus must have shared His Gethsemane experience with His disciples or it would not be written. Three of the four gospels give an account of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness, a most significant part of His earthly journey. Jesus knows all of us will be also be tested to see what Truth we stand upon firmly, just as He was. This is a critical aspect of God’s dealing with our humanity.
Our human need to be right, to prove we are good and worthy, that we, alone know the truth, is a destroyer of many things. Examine any nation’s story over time. Harm and destruction to others is a part of any great nation’s history, including our own and it still routinely shows up in national and international politics. Worldly as well as religious advisers assist by finding more ways to avoid taking responsibility, particularly when facing loss of wealth, power, position—or elections.
We will never be perfected in politics or by human government, but we can learn much from God by discerning observation. He gives discernment to see His truth about the motives of others. All the ways of the world do not stand in the face of God’s Kingdom, as Jesus Christ has overcome the world. The ways of man may lead to earthly success, but it is neither godly nor righteous. The underlying, unrighteous motives are just those things God is purging from His own.
There continue to be many ways that pride and ego lead us down a path of arrogant, closed-minded beliefs and assumptions. The former politician, Upton Sinclair, said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” How true in government, religious leadership, and, ultimately, in the hearts of humans. Such self-interest, rather than God-submission, thrives in the hearts of many who refuse to search their own hearts to allow God to examine their motives and actions before God.
What if we as Christians truly learned to search our own hearts as God directs, as well as developing God’s discernment about other’s hearts? Could we grow up into knowing all about others and loving them as the Lord does? What a work of God this will be! The heart is revealed by words and actions, but some are more deceptive and wily in their manipulation of truth than others.
“The heart is crooked above all things, and it is mortally ill; who can know it? I am Yahweh Who investigates the heart, Who tests the innermost being, so as to give to each one according to his ways, according to the fruit of his actions.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 CLV
None of us know all truth and most of us stubbornly cling to more than one questionable, unexamined belief we picked up somewhere along the way. It is impossible to be fully objective, so the best we can do is be open to seeing our own subjectivity. All of these biases and misconceptons are carried into our walk with God, who is all truth, all the time. Because of such human limitations, our ears may be closed to the present truth now being revealed by God.
There is much truth in every move and every era of God, even when He is moving on. Consider the great moves of God in the past. Where are they now? It was and is truth, but God is moving on, moving us further, doing a new thing. There are always those who just stop learning, encamped and resting on their present storehouse of knowledge, no matter how dated or unexamined. Such were the religious leaders of Jesus’ time and not much has changed.
How many of the next generation get weary of hearing us older ones resist change, crying “But we have always done it this way!” It would be wonderful if God’s people were different, but we are not. Many religious leaders resist what God is presently doing, unwilling to examine new truths if it does not fit with the basis of their ministry, particularly if the ministry is popular and lucrative. Many anointed leaders of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements hung on after their ministry was hay, wood, and stubble.
We can hang on long after God’s presence is no longer with us, sitting with empty buildings with only a few loyal followers left. Great ministries who have been anointed by God for a time fall into decline and error because they do not move on with God. In the Revelation, that is exactly what God is saying to the seven churches: repent, be changed or He will remove His candlestick, the light that His presence brings, from their midst.
Many a godly foundation becomes wood, hay, and stubble that God has to burn to ashes when the leadership no longer hears Him. Some will be wailing and gnashing their teeth as God continues to burn up their old for the new He is now bringing.
“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. After the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’
Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ And he will answer, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are thrown out.
People will come from east and west and north and south and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And indeed, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.” Luke 13:24- 28 KJV
Why would the last be first? Because those who came first are more often entrenched, unwilling to move on with the Lord. Those who come in last have much less to lose, not having years of religious accumulation and indoctrination to lay down. They just want to know God! Here is God’s criteria/ Jesus said the Master does not know those who were using His name, doing things with and for God. God did not have their hearts in intimate fellowship for they have not yielded them in surrender to Him.
It is not how long we have been a Christian, professing faith and outwardly following religious ways. It is not what God has granted us in the past, though He may have used us for mighty works in that season. The key in knowing all the truth is how intimately we know the Master and His ways. God is spirit and we are to worship Him in spirit and truth. Jesus said that known sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes last in that culture, would be the first to enter in because they saw their need for a Saviour.
“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.” Psalm 19:14 KJV
Father God, we desire to have all the truth You have for us. Purify our motives, change our hearts, so that Your ways are our ways. Thank you, Father.