Truth.

Last week was all about getting unstuck. This week we are going to look at something that will also help us get unstuck. 1 Corinthians 13:6 says, “Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.” We live in a world where everyone has opinions, and they are not afraid to voice them. People take to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Blogs, Vlogs, Facebook or YouTube to air out their views on life. When we scroll through social media, we are constantly being bombarded by people’s thoughts and opinions and their versions of “reality” of which we know most of it is fake and it is just for the gram.

As people try to look good on the internet, honesty is slowly disappearing. As people try to have a unique view point so they can go viral, there are blurred lines between right and wrong. But our verse today tells us how we ought to be. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. In the MSG version it says love, “Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth”.

There is a gentleness and a strength in love that is described in this verse. Taking God to be love, I can see God standing in the back of a room, big smile on His face and celebrating when we are honest and real. God loves the real you. Messed up, crooked teeth, patchy skin and all God loves the real you and celebrates you.

Question is, do we love the real God or do we love the God of our imagination? See the God of our imagination will do things exactly as we want Him to. He never disagrees with us or thinks we are wrong. When we pray, regardless of our motive, He makes it happen in a blink. But that’s not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible, the real God is honest. He won’t lie to us to make us feel good about our disfunction. He will confront us with the truth so we can get unstuck. Lies tend to keep us stuck and get us nowhere.

Do we take pleasure in flowering truth or do we shy away from it? I used to shy away from truth. Truth sometimes can feel like a slap in the face, but it is good for us. We need God to confront us with the truth, His truth. Not Betty on Instagram’s truth or Billy from Twitter’s truth. God’s truth. We need God’s truth in our lives. The reason we ought to rejoice or take pleasure in the truth is found in this verse in John 8:32 which says, “For if you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom into your lives.”

When we welcome God’s truth into our lives, it releases true freedom into our lives. This means the opposite is true too. When we shut truth out, we will find ourselves bound and stuck in a web of lies and disfunction. God will never lie to us or be dishonest with us. We can trust God. You may not always like what He has to say or what He does but you better believe that God is always, always looking out for you and doing what is best for you. Always.

John 14:6 says, “Jesus explained, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, and I am the Life. No one comes next to the Father except through union with me. To know me is to know my Father too.”” God is the only truth we need to know. Knowing God is knowing the truth. Embracing God is to embrace the truth. As we get to know Jesus and embrace more of Him, we find we get closer and closer to Him and to our Heavenly Father.

Love and blessings

Melissa