What Is Truth Part 2

What Is Truth Part 2

It’s the summer of 1993. I go to God in prayer and ask Him exactly what a friend recommended to me; “God, reveal Yourself to me”. I hear no voice from heaven nor do I receive a visit from a celestial angel. But what I did get was as crystal clear as anything I have ever “heard”.

 “You must believe in Me through My Son”.

There was no audible voice or a sign in the sky but a crystal clear, distinct impression that I sensed within me. I can’t explain it other than my prayer being answered. I’ve had others wonder if it was just my own mind talking back to me. I can’t say that there haven’t been times when I wondered that myself. But far too much happened that drastically changed my life from that first prayer that I screamed out to God three years earlier when I was dying from more emotional pain than I can describe and had developed a 21 year dependence on drugs and alcohol. Way too many “coincidences” and major changes had taken place since then (like getting clean and being able to actually stay clean) and I could not come up with any other answer than the God who I had rejected my entire life literally saved my life when I sincerely asked Him to. I try to be a rational and logical thinker and I honestly could not come up with any other answer. And please try to understand that I am as skeptical on these matters as they come. When this all went down in ’93, I initially wanted nothing to do with the God of any religion, particularly the religion I was somewhat raised in which was Catholicism. I wanted nothing to do with any religion. But I had developed a belief in a God who hears and answers prayer because I had experienced far too much to believe otherwise. I did not come into this belief shouting halleluiah but instead came into it kicking and screaming. Most of the people I had associated with were as left wing as they get and I knew that most of them would think I had lost my mind. I initially worried what they and many others would think. But no matter where I went all I could hear was that “impression” resounding through my mind.

“You must believe in Me through My Son”.

It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command. I asked God for Him to reveal Himself to me and this is the answer I get back. It was not the answer I thought I was looking for. But in hindsight it was the answer I had been seeking my entire life.

Because the answer pointed me not to a church or to a religion, but to His Son. It was a direct command to go to Jesus Christ. And what I have found out was that it was He that I had been looking for all these years. Not that He was lost of course; that was my position. I just found what my heart, mind and soul had desired above everything and everyone else. It was (and still is) all about Him.

I am also the first to admit that my experience with becoming a Christian was a relative and subjective experience. It didn’t begin with much, if any of a coming to a truth through absolute and objective means. It was all based on my thoughts and feelings, even though much of my thinking and emotions were contrary to wanting to believe in Him. But as I stated in Part 1, my thinking process had begun to change and I was looking at the idea of God as I did when I described the reality and truth of the chair. It had stopped making any sense to me that there could be a God who embodied all the differing attributes that many religions and people had placed on the idea of God. There were far too many contradictions in all of these differing beliefs. I have heard many say that all religions are essentially the same; that they all teach love, kindness, do unto others as they would do unto you and so on. Well upon further examination, nothing could be further from the truth. There are many similarities in religious beliefs but the differences are far too different for them all to be able to “coexist” alongside of one another and have all of them equally be true.

The one similarity is that they all state that they are the truth. How can that be when one religion states that the messiah hasn’t appeared on this earth yet (Judaism) while another says the messiah has appeared? How could one say that there really is no God (Buddhism) while most others say there most certainly is a God? How could one say that there is one God in three persons while another says there are at least 330 million deities (Hinduism)? How can one religion claim that unbelievers must be converted or face death (Islam) and another religion claim that a person must pick up their cross daily and love one another sacrificially in order to follow their God?

How can Jesus Christ make such an exclusive statement that “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6. How could this be if all of these other religious beliefs are equally valid? How can they “coexist” alongside one another? How could they all be the truth?

They can’t. It’s just not possible. In order to believe that they can one must suspend all logic and reason. You either have to completely reject the Gospel message and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and believe something else or you must believe that His claims are true. You can’t have it both ways. Remember that one of the signs of stable mental health is the ability to perceive, understand and operate in reality. No matter how sincerely you believe something if it doesn’t hold up to critical analysis and rationalism then it can’t be true. I may believe with every fiber of my being that I am the President of the United States but upon the first layer of examination anyone could see that it’s just not true.

When someone says that “I am the truth, the way and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” then that person is either a lunatic, a liar (as C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell have pointed out) or that person is stating a fact.

In 1993 I sincerely ask God for Him to reveal Himself to me. Against my own beliefs and wishes I get the clear distinct impression that “You must believe in Me through My Son”.

The only way to the Father is through the Son. You must believe in Me through My Son.

I had never read John 14:3 before in my entire life.

Imagine my surprise when I finally did. And then when I read the rest and found that all of it held up against my logic and reason.

What is truth? Looks like it’s that guy called Jesus, the Christ.

More to come…