Truth Matters

This past weekend we had an incredible experience with Lee Strobel and Mark Mittlelberg at the incastevents.com simulcast The Case for Christianity.

I came away more convinced than ever that

Truth matters.

We all jump to conclusions and we do it every day but the truth matters and we are not free to rearrange the truth to suit our preferences.

Sadly of course there are those who try and unfortunately by blurring the truth it turns into a firestorm that leads to selling books, talk shows, blogs, debates, and maybe a brief moment of fame.

Truth matters.

There is not a single serious scholar today—believer or unbeliever—who would claim that the Bible is simply a collection of myths or fictional stories.
The Bible is rooted in history, and from one end to the other it recounts real events in the lives of real people, and recorded by real eyewitnesses.

 As one of the New Testament writers declared:

"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).

So, when we have given ourselves to Christ, truth is not relative.  We do our best to understand what God has revealed in his Word, assisted by the Holy Spirit and the guidance the Spirit has given to the church.

It may make us feel better for the moment to follow the trendy and hip person who says a loving God will not choose to be eternally separated from sin but it just isn't true...sin separates us from God and there will be a definitive moment of separation.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Matthew 25:41

It doesn’t matter what we think would be most reasonable or most just or most kind.  What matters is what God has made known.  

Truth matters.

We do get to choose how we talk about what we believe.  
 
It is a rare moment when the world is watching Christians discuss their most fundamental beliefs — let’s make sure they see a conversation absolutely committed to the truth of God's Word but also absolutely committed to loving one another throughout.

"Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other." John 13:35 

In this world of ubiquitous media the world will judge us not only for what we believe but by the way we talk about what we believe.

Truth matters.

The hard news:

Nowhere in the Bible do I find any support for what is called "universalism"—the belief that everyone will be saved in the end, whether they had any faith or not. - Billy Graham

The good news God has made a way:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17 (NIV)

Truth matters.