I spend much of my working hours sorting fact from fiction. It’s not necessarily because someone is lying to me. More often, there are simply facts my clients don’t know—pieces of the story that surface in discovery. My job is to help my client see clearly and make solid decisions based on truth.
We have peace when how we live and think actually aligns with truth.
There are physical truths we rely upon that are based on dependable physical laws—like gravity. And there is spiritual truth, which is actually more dependable because it determines our eternity. Jesus said:
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)
Jesus did not say He had truth or taught truth. He said He IS the truth. If we believe God created and sustains everything, then it makes sense that His nature—loving, just, and righteous—determines real truth.
So how can we know what is true? Well, according to the Bible, God gave us four obvious ways to know HIS truth.
The first is the knowledge God planted in every human:
“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” (Romans 1:19)
The second is in the manifestation of creation:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)
We don’t need a seminary degree to look at a sunrise or the intricate design of the human eye and know it was intelligently designed.
The third is in our design. We are all made in the image of God.
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27
This is why every human being, believer or not, has this deep desire for justice, love, and for the purity of righteousness.
The fourth way we know the truth is through direct revelation. God does not leave us to guess about Himself or His truth. We don’t have to make it up or figure it out as we make our way through the darkness of this world.
My friend, we have abundant evidence from God about where we can find the truth. And Jesus was direct about what happens when we walk in truth:
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)
But we live in a world controlled by the greatest enemy of truth. Jesus minced no words about him:
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. (John 8:44)
Satan is not some minor character who tells the occasional fib. Lying is his native language. And the Bible describes what happens to people who follow him and reject God’s truth:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. (Romans 1:18)
The exchange of truth for lies robs us of the presence of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. When our thoughts, words, and deeds stop matching God’s reality, anxiety takes over. We are constantly trying to hold together a version of reality that does not exist. The struggle to live in the truth is real even for born again believers! For example, David was called “a man after God’s own heart” and yet the Bible says:
Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and did not turn aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. (1 Kings 15:5)
Even David had a season where his flesh pulled him off the path of truth. The pull toward self-deception is real and must be resisted every day. Our flesh always wants, what it wants and what it wants is never good for us. Proverbs tells us how to fight back!
Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. (Proverbs 3:3)
It [truth] will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones. (Proverbs 3:8)
God’s truth is our nourishment and compass. When it becomes the thoughts we think, the words we speak, and permeates every corner of our lifes, we have peace, and thus, people see Jesus (the Prince of Peace) in us. Indeed, the church is called, “The pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15) God is so faithful to give us all we need to walk in His ways!
The LORD is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. (Psalm 145:17-18)
When we pray with a wide-open heart for God to show us His truth, He absolutely does! When we live with this kind of childlike heart of total dependence, He gives us His peace, and we shine like a light in the darkness:
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. (2 Corinthians 4:6-7)
Living by truth is the calling of every born again believer. When we are constantly renewing our minds in God’s truth, then our thoughts match what is actually real—about God, about ourselves, about the people around us, and about our eternal hope. Living in truth gives us God’s perspective and produces freedom and peace.
Prayer:
Search my heart, Lord, and reveal the areas where I am not thinking and living in truth. I bind Your truth and Your mercy around my mind, and I ask You to let them shape how I speak and how I treat the people around me. Keep me near to You and allow the fruit of Your Spirit to flow freely through me so I can be a light to the world. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
