Conforming to the Real

Man wants truth to bend to him, instead of him bending to truth. We want truth to be as we create it to be, rather than we being created by it. We want it to conform to us, instead of us conforming to it. However, truth is not an “it” that we can create, but a Him who created us.

We cannot have the world where truth is sacrificed on an altar of tolerance. That world will always be a false unattainable distortion rather than a true reality from which we can live. The true reality is exclusive of that which is not truth.

Francis Schaeffer writes, “There is that which is true God, and there is that which is no god. God is there as against His not being there. That’s the big antithesis.” Ultimate reality is an antithesis rather than a synthesis. God is not all things. There are things He is not and things that are separated from His good nature, hence the things that are not good.

For anyone to deviate from the goodness that is God, a separation has been caused in the very fabric of ones being setting one apart from God. We are to be set apart unto God, not from Him. Yet we enter this world separated from God and in need of a rejoining with Him.

That which is good can only be that which reflects or is aligned with His Truth as presented in the Person of Jesus.

All else is a distortion of that true reality and therefore false. Bill Johnson aptly stated “The devil is not the opposite of God! He's the opposite of Michael, God has no opposite!" The devil has no power to create truth; he can only distort the truth God created causing an untruth rather than a competing truth. He distorts something causing that path to lead away from God, not toward God.

We want that path to be the same as the path to God. We want to head whatever direction we choose and still be okay with God. If we cannot have our cake eat it too, we blame God for not doing His due diligence to accept our way instead of the way that is true.

We put God on trial instead of realizing we sit before the Judge. He takes off His robe and becomes our defense paying our debt to sin for us. We can receive that payment by receiving Him who is the payment. We can only bear what is true if the Truth is first born into us by Him who is Truth. This is the nature of the rebirth of the person into our new identity as Sons and Daughters of God fully adopted as heirs with Christ to the heavenly Kingdom of God.

It is key to understand that salvation is not something Jesus gives us, but something Jesus is. This is why it is not based on something we earn, but something we are given by being given Jesus Himself. He infuses us with Himself; therefore we gain His eternal life.

Hope of Eternal Life

Hope is a tangible reality rather than an intangible desire. Many see hope as something one musters up akin to positive thinking towards the desired goal. However, when Scripture speaks of hope, it speaks of something that is tangibly within the nature of Jesus. Likewise, when the Scriptures speak of having the hope of eternal life, this is not in the context of hoping we attain it, but in resting in its attained reality. We are to live in that reality versus wishing we might one day attain it.

Eternal life needs to be understood as existing within Someone rather than being a state of existence a far off. I John 5:11 tells us that “this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” Notice carefully that 1 John 1:2 states clearly that “the life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” John says they proclaim that “the eternal life . . . has appeared to us.” This is not speaking of a day in the future when we go to heaven, but it is speaking of the person of Christ Jesus. Jesus is eternal life.

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Why I Am A Christian

Thus far, I have written posts mostly about the philosophical and historical reasons for the authenticity of Christianity. In this post, I want to bring it down to a personal level and address the topic of why I believe in Jesus. It is written that Jesus once asked his disciples “who do you say that I am?” They responded that, “some say you’re a prophet, others say you are . . .” He stopped them. “No,” he insisted, “who do you say that I am?”

I can point to the Bible and tell you what the Bible records of Jesus. I can point to history and show what history says about Jesus. I can point to the Church throughout history as to who is this Jesus. I can also illuminate philosophy as to why He must be. However, all that fades in comparison in my personal life as to who I know Him to be from first hand experience. Why is all this Christianity so important to me? Why do I spend hours writing about His Truth? Why have I devoted my life to Him?

I was raised in a Christian home and all that that entailed. But there came a time that I had to choose for myself--where I examined what I was taught about Jesus and my faith in Him and found it to be not merely a product of my upbringing, but a reality in my individual life. I found that I knew Jesus and that I wanted a life with Him.

When I entered college I encountered challenge after challenge against what I believed. I had a Muslim professor bent on mocking my faith and even proclaiming it his goal to convert me to Islam. I had professors who did not believe in truth at all and were constantly attacking my stance on the validity of the Christian worldview. I had other professors who accepted a multiplicity of truths as long as none of them proclaimed to be the Truth. Still another who forbid me to write anything from a Christian perspective in her class. I met students who were wiccans or atheists and many who did not have any ideas about what they believed as long as it wasn’t Christianity. Here in this antagonistic environment my faith increased. I studied constantly into these matters in search of answers to all these worldview questions being levied at me day in and day out. I found there were good reasonable answers in abundance and I began to learn more and more about why Christianity is the only worldview that lines up with reality in the greatest of measurements.

While my intellectual understanding and firm resolve to share the answers with anyone who wanted them grew in those college years, there is more to my story.

In the last few years I have experienced God in ways I had never before encountered. I have found a new depth to my life in Christ that transcends the strong private faith in my heart and the intellectual foundation of truth in my head. I have begun to experience and learn about the supernatural aspect of the Christian life. I have experienced compassion for people like never before, miraculous physical healing, the tangible presence of God upon and in me, healing of others through my prayers, sharing that tangible presence with another by a slight touch, and having people I’ve never met share with me things that God is telling them that has been apparent intimate knowledge only God could have known.

My husband and I are learning to live life by hearing from God and doing what He tells and shows us to do. God is showing up every step of the way and we follow His lead with His help. It’s been an amazing journey and it is just the beginning.

I know God is real and that I have relationship with Him through Jesus as sure and certain as I am that I breathe air everyday. It’s not a delusion or a fantasy. It’s not a matter of believing real hard that it’s true. It is about knowing that He is real. It’s trust in that knowledge that equals faith. My faith is strong because my knowledge is sure, not because it is in lack and needs faith to boost it.

Who do I say that He is? He is my Lord and Savior, my God, and Eternal Life. The giver of the most wonderful relationship man can ever have--the relationship that is real life now and forevermore.