Jesus, the Truth

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Scripture: John 14:6 (ESV) 6 Jesus said to him, “I am . . . the truth,

Devotion:

          Today we continue to look at John 14:6. Yesterday we covered Jesus as the way to God, and our hope of heaven. Today we look at the second description John uses for Jesus. I have written on truth recently. In that post I contrasted the cultures propensity to lie in contrast to the truth the scripture calls us to. Today I want to explore Jesus as our standard of truth.

          It always seems to be easier in this world to find a lie than it is to find the truth. Jesus is, however, the truth. He is not my truth, or your truth or even the churches truth (even churches can and will fall victim to one lie or another. Time and space would fail to be sufficient to document all the lies that the church has believed over the centuries). In fact, Jesus represents all truth everywhere and for all time.

          We meet up with lies for the first time in the Garden of Eden. There in the third chapter of Genesis we hear the first lie. When the serpent questions Eve about eating of the forbidden fruit.

 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You1 shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:1-6 ESV)

          And with that lie sin entered the world. Lies and deceit began to prosper. Man saw the fruits of his sin and fear entered his heart. And there would be no real remedy until Jesus passed his own temptation. Would he turn stones into bread to quench his hunger after he had been in the wilderness fasting for forty days. The devil tried two more times to make Jesus listen to a lie and disobey God, but Jesus armed with his full knowledge of the truths of scripture would not be fooled into repeating Adam and Eves folly in the Garden.

          Jesus has set for us the standard for truth. Truth was a part of him because he was God in the flesh. Truth was as much a part of him as was love or forgiveness. True he had a real human fleshly body in which it was possible for him to sin, but he also had a truly divine nature that meant he could resist sin better than we are able to do.

          We do well to acknowledge Jesus as the Truth. Just as I introduced the first lie to you, I will now leave you with the final truth. The victory of Jesus:

12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 22:12-13 ESV)

Prayer:

          Heavenly Father thank you for sending your son Jesus into the world to show us what truth looks like. We pray that you will keep each of us in that truth until the day when you send Jesus back to us. Jesus has been for us the beginning of our salvation; I pray that he will soon return and bring about our final deliverance. Amen

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