Going Back to the Roots

Dear Reader,

I'm going to change my train of thought today from what I have been doing. I looked at the title of the blog, "And the truth shall set you free." I realized that I haven't been focusing on that theme in many of my previous posts. Don't get me wrong, the truth of what I've shared with you, does set you free. Yet I haven't been as deliberate to point that out as perhaps I should have.

That is going to change today, and I pray, for the future posts of this blog.

It is my belief that a fundamental part of who is God is that He is truthful. The Bible is full of God being truthful. God didn't, and doesn't, have a whole lot of tact. As a matter of fact, God is extremely blunt. God isn't "politically correct." God is painfully truthful. And that is good for all of us. We need people to be painfully truthful with us, don't we? We need brutal truth sometimes because we will never grow out of our comfort zones, we will not mature without some painful, brutal truth. We may not like it. We probably won't want it. But it's not a matter of want. It is a matter of need. We need God to be brutally honest and truthful with us. We need ourselves to be brutally honest with ourselves.

Please, please, please, do not misinterpret me. I do not want to convey the truth of God as "mean," "angry," "selectively punishing groups of people." God wants us to know that He is not mean, nor angry, nor punishing a certain group of people. God is just, right, and sent His punishment for sin on a SINGLE PERSON. That single person is His Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible presents the truth of God and what God ultimately wants from all of us. It is written down in the book of John, chapter three.

There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Him [Jesus] at night and said, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one could perform these signs You do unless God were with him." Jesus replied, "I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." "But how can anyone be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked Him. "Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born?" Jesus answered, "I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit, is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it come from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." "How can these things be?" asked Nicodemus. "Are you a teach of Israel and don't know these things?" Jesus replied. "I assure you: We speak what We know and We testify to what We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven? No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven - the Son of Man. Jesus as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, bu tha the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the ON and Only Son of God. This, then, is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deed were evil For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his woks may be shown to be accomplished by God." Christian Standard Version, John 3:1-21

Jesus was truthful about God's plan to Nicodemus, as well as to us. The Savior of the world is Jesus. God's wrath, judgment, and grief about sin was taken out upon Jesus, not us. God is not angry with us. God wants us to believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world. God wants us to live in His promises of life, light, and immortality. God wants us to live a joyous, praise filled, life that lives by means of the light of God. In other words, we follow the will and direction of God because of what Jesus did for us. This is the truth. This is the freedom that we have because of the truth.

So, from now on, I will be more deliberate in my presentation of the truth; the truth of God for our freedom from sin, death, and the power of Satan.

Talk to you soon, freed people.