Embracing Absolute Non-Truth

Embracing absolute non-truth. Yes, you heard it. Over the years the world went from questioning absolute truth to accepting that there is very little absolute truth to living out their lives in absolute non-truth. If it were just the world that has done that, well, OK but it is Christians who are embracing this.

I am fairly certain that I cannot go a day without finding more evidence that this is true. I am sure there are plenty of reasons and rationality for this. Lately, I have seen four reasons for this in the faith community.

We lack the courage to call a spade a spade. Because we bought into the “there’s no absolutes” argument, we lack the convictions and courage to point out the folly.
We fear violating political correctness. We have been told that you can’t speak the truth no matter how true it is. The “11th” commandment, which may trump the first 10, is “Thou shalt not offend.”
We are too nice. Somehow we confuse love with nice. If you love them, be nice to them including not telling them the truth. Is lying to people nice? Loving?
We refuse to address our own issues and therefore confronting sin would be hypocritical. The last part is true but we can do something about the first part and should.

Recently I was helping a young man, who I care for, deal with an issue. He said something that really opened my eyes to the fall out of his problem. He said that all his life he has sought out mature, Christian, male leadership for discipleship. At every church he found what he thought fit what he needed. Yet it was not until recently that somebody actually called him out on his sin. Finally, after years of pursuing the truth he found someone who called it what it was. I do not how know how many churches he sought out or how many men he encountered but if it was more than one church or one Christian man, it was one too many.

This tells me we have to get serious about our calling. A calling that every believer must embrace. Love is kind and love is telling the truth. There is a cost though. We must count that cost before we accept the calling. People really do not like the truth. I admit that I am not overly fond of it myself. You may lose friends, which of course, begs the question if they really were friends to begin with. You will be ostracized. If you attend meeting and mention the elephant in the room…well that will be the last time you are invited back. To me that’s OK because I like my elephants at the zoo and not in a small room with other people. I find the smell of elephants tolerable at the zoo, not so much in meetings.

Jesus prefaced 76 statements with “Truly I say to you” (NASB) or “I tell you the truth” (NLT) or “Truly I tell you” (NIV). Jesus declares He is a truth teller. In John 8:32 He says if we continue in His word, then we are truly disciples of His, and we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. Speaking the truth in love is a requirement for the Body of Christ to grow up and mature, according to Ephesians 4:11-15.

As a ministry we cannot afford to embrace non-truth. We must be transparent, be real and tell each other the truth. If we cannot model truth telling with each other then we cannot do it out there in field. This means we cannot make a difference in people’s lives. Tragically, we have not done anything for the Kingdom. Even more tragic is that if we have not done anything for the Kingdom, we have done a lot against the Kingdom. If Jesus is who He says He is, when we speak truth, we are sharing Jesus.