Your Word is Truth

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

John 17:17

In a world generously supplied with con artists, wordy politicians, and outright liars, it is a great relief to know there is a place where one can always hear the truth. That place is the Bible. God is a Realist. He deals with everything and everyone exactly the way they are, and he knows what that is because he made everything and everyone. It is impossible for him to tell a lie, because he himself is Truth!

The truth is not always easy for us to hear. Sometimes it pierces me and convicts me. Sometimes I wish I could evade it, and then I am reminded that it was sent to heal me. Often it encourages me and heartens me. Sometimes it restores me when nothing else can do so. It confronts me with paradoxes of revelation which intrigue me and challenge me. It exposes the secular illusions of the day and reveals the destructive ends to which they lead. It deals honestly with uncomfortable concepts and opposes the strangleholds of tradition.

I have learned to appreciate the Bible most because it brings me face-to-face with my God! Or at least the relationship is so personal that it seems to be a face-to-face encounter. My heavenly Father becomes more real and closer than any earthly father. I can all but see my Lord and Savior standing beside me and talking to me as I read his words in the gospels. Sometimes the words of Scripture become so vivid and luminous that I feel like kneeling or even falling on my face before the majesty of God. No other book has such power to transport me beyond earth to heavenly places.

I am often made aware of the power of the Bible in other people's lives as well. I see it awaken a response in many readers to seize and possess for themselves the promises of God. I have watched it reshape the minds of an entire congregation to view life biblically and realistically. For many, the Bible has unfolded to them the meaning of their humanity and clarified the way it was meant to function. It awakens compassion and delivers from selfishness. It arouses a sense of true worship, grounded in the truth and issuing from the Spirit within. No wonder Jeremiah could say, When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight (Jeremiah 15:16).

Father, open my heart so that as I encounter your Word I would encounter you speaking to me. Arouse in me a spirit of true worship, grounded in the truth and issuing from the Spirit within.