Lately, I’ve heard a lot about truth – specifically about “sharing my truth.” That’s just weird. We don’t own truth. Truth owns us.
Whether we want to submit to it or not, we must. It’s like gravity. We are subject to it.
Today I watched an extremely graphic video of a baby girl being brutally murdered by a doctor in a late-term abortion. She was delivered with only her head remaining in her mother’s vaginal canal. Then a man in crisp green scrubs did the unthinkable. He placed a metal spike into the birth canal and into the base of the baby’s skull to violently break her neck, severe her spinal cord, and spin her brain inside her skull. Then she was pulled out – dead.
The violence was graphic. It was an unthinkable truth. It had to be shared.
The person who posted it on social media knew it. He closed the post with the following statement:
“Good bye. My account will probably be closed for this.”
Truth like this is forbidden in today’s climate.
When I was 17, I had an abortion. And I pretended for well over a decade it didn’t really happen. It was a truth I didn’t welcome into my psyche, though it was present, like a tree’s roots spreading and suffocating the life out of everything else in its midst.
It just didn’t let go. More importantly, God didn’t let go. He never stopped pursuing me no matter how hard I ran from Him.
Feelings come and go. And so do opinions. But truth stands still. It is immovable… unchangeable. We simply respond to truth with feelings and opinions.
More than a decade later, I began to respond to the Holy Spirit’s relentless drawing as He showered me with His love and unbelievable grace. Its depth can only be grasped by the Spirit. The human mind simply cannot conceive it.
He loved me first.
Then, He showed me the truth in light of His unconditional love. Tiny perfectly formed hands in a pile inside a bucket removed from an abortion clinic – a picture that said more than a thousand words. Somehow it showed me the depths of myself, everything I was, and everything I wasn’t. All I could do was surrender. Forgiveness and peace penetrated every thought and every cell of my body.
I suddenly understood what Jesus had accomplished on that wretched cross and how it actually did apply to me. This unbelievable grace covered me and filled me. I didn’t need to hide anymore. He saw through me and loved me.
I had tried to have a relationship with God, but I was hiding the parts of myself that weren’t “good.” At least I was trying. I gave Him only what I thought He wanted.
But He patiently waited. He arranged every circumstance, building up to that miraculous, explosive moment when time and eternity collided.
I’ve told this story so many times, but I cannot possibly tell it enough or find enough words to express its truth. It is the pivotal highlight of my entire life. And it was brought on by a picture of wretched reality. A picture of truth.
It is easy to become discouraged in today’s climate for those of us who are called to be watchmen on the wall – alerting others to the prevailing deception in our culture and especially in the church.
Think of the prophet Jeremiah who never saw the fruit of his labor. Read Lamentations and feel his pain. Ours cannot compare.
Unthinkable truths must be told and must be shown.
But just as Jeremiah simply could not stop telling the truth, neither can we. If someone had not made that decision to put a graphic image on a TV screen that Saturday afternoon, the testimony I just shared with you wouldn’t exist.
If God has put within you a fire, be faithful. Do not grow weary. Look to Him and not to man for your approval. I’m preaching to myself here. I need this. And maybe you do too.
O Lamb of God, who, both by your example and precept, instructed us to be meek and humble, give me grace throughout my whole life, in every thought, and word, and work, to imitate your meekness and humility. Mortify in me the whole body of pride; grant me to feel that I am nothing and have nothing, and that I deserve nothing but shame and contempt, but misery and punishment. Grant, O Lord, that I may look for nothing, claim nothing; and that I may go through all the scenes of life, not seeking my own glory, but looking wholly unto you, and acting wholly for you.
Let me never speak any word that may tend to my own praise, unless the good of my neighbour requires it; and even then let me beware, lest, to heal another, I wound my own soul. Let my ears and my heart be ever shut to the praise that comes from men.
Give me a dread of applause, in whatsoever form, and from whatsoever tongue, it comes. Deliver my soul from this snare of hell; neither let me spread it for the feet of others. Whosoever perishes thereby, let their blood be upon their own head, and let not my hand be upon them.
O giver of every good and perfect gift, if at any time you please to work by my hand, teach me to discern what is my own from what is another’s, and to render unto you the things that are yours. As all the good that is done on earth you do it yourself, let me ever return to you all the glory. Let me, as a pure crystal, transmit all the light you pour upon me; but never claim as my own what is your sole property.
John Wesley
We are bond slaves to the Truth – Jesus Himself. He owns us. And He sets us free.
Editor’s Note: If you are seeking the Truth which sets you free and fully restores your relationship with God, please visit www.peacewithGod.net.
