Marketplace Ponderings (6)

Telling the Truth

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:5-7.

Many years ago as I was contemplating the importance and challenge of telling the truth as a way of life, I sensed my Father speaking to me and saying, “Bob, if you are going to live in a transparent City in eternity, wouldn’t it be a good thing to learn to live transparently today?” As I pondered the New Jerusalem and the transparency associated with it (Revelation 21:18, 21) and the Light of God permeating the City (Revelation 21:23; 22:5) my heart and mind were captured by a vision of light, transparency, and truth in Jesus Christ. I saw clearly that to lie, to hide the truth, to deceive, to “spin”; that all of these things were antithetical to the City of God, the Light of God,  and the Nature of God.

I also saw that to lie, to deceive, to twist the truth was to repudiate the Nature of Christ within me, to deny Him, and to drink the cup of the enemy and of darkness. Lying not only introduces toxicity into our souls, it poisons our relationships and gives the enemy a foothold within our hearts and minds.

Jesus names the devil as “the father of lies” (John 8:44) - when a Christ-follower lies he denies the Nature of God and drinks from the nature of the enemy. When a Christian lies he pushes aside the cup of Christ and drinks the cup of Satan. Lying is a cancer in the soul.

If we are to be the people of the True and Living God then we are to be a people who tell and live the Truth as a Way of Life. The truth we tell as a way of life is a constant and consistent testimony to Jesus Christ, that our lives belong to Him, that we are not our own but that we are bought with a price.

There are at least four elements of telling the truth that I want to explore; (1) telling the truth to our own detriment; (2) telling the truth in a culture of lying; (3) telling the truth to clients; (4) telling the truth to our subordinates and teaching them to tell the truth to their subordinates. As we explore these facets of truth-telling let’s keep in mind that the way we tell the truth can be as important as the truth we tell - if we are self-righteous, hateful, arrogant, prideful, and use the truth to bludgeon others then it matters little how right we may be, our attitudes and actions will speak louder than our words. We are to be considerate and gentle and peaceable when communicating (2 Timothy 2:24 - 26 and James 3:13 - 18 provide some models for this). Yes, there are times we need to drive the moneychangers from the Temple in a fashion that makes a statement, but even then, or especially then, we had better fear God and fear our own propensity to be judge and jury...for we are not God, nor are we judge and jury.

Psalm 15 is a center-of-gravity in my understanding of truth-telling in daily life. It begins by asking, “O Yahweh, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill?” In other words, “O God, who may have intimate fellowship with You?”

The the psalm goes on to illustrate the way of life of the person who will live in an intimate relationship with God. He (or she) will live in integrity, work righteousness, not slander others nor do evil to others, nor reproach his friend, will recognize those who are opposed to God’s righteousness as well as those who follow God and are seeking to know Him, will tell the truth to his own detriment, will not loan money at interest (you can work through that one yourself), and will not take bribes.

Our focus in the psalm is twofold; “speaks the truth in his heart” and “swears to his own hurt and does not change.” Jesus teaches that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Our words reflect our meditations, the things we ponder and think about, the waters our souls drink from. There is no better truth for our hearts to ponder than God’s Word (see Psalm 1). One of the elements of meditation is “speaking to oneself” - ruminating on the Word of God and listening for the Voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Word. A heart with the engrafted Word (James 1:21) is a heart being formed into the image of Jesus Christ. If God’s Word is not speaking to us, other “words” are - we are filling our hearts and minds with something, our souls are hungry for food - what are we feeding ourselves and others?

The Word of Truth produces truth in the inner person, and when Truth lives in a temple Truth will speak from the temple. We can be religious and be liars; we cannot live in the Truth and submit to the Truth living within us and live lives of lying and deceit.

If we struggle to tell the truth let us not focus on our mouths, let us focus on our hearts. When the Word reigns within us our words will be subject to the Word. Let us not say that we cannot help ourselves - every word is a decision, every decision a matter of the will, every act of the will either an act of obedience to Christ or disobedience. As Paul writes in Romans Chapter 6, let us consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. The world is watching, the cosmos is watching, what is our witness?

Telling the truth to our own detriment, “he who swears to his own hurt and does not change,” is when we discover who we are in Christ, it is when we decide whether we will manipulate others and take the easy way out, or whether we will speak the truth by the grace of God and trust Christ through the consequences. This form of truth-telling molds the Christ-follower into the image of God and submits to the working of the Holy Spirit deep within the inner person. When Jesus bids us take up our cross daily and follow Him, He bids us to deny ourselves (Luke 9:23ff) and not be ashamed of His words...His words are truth, they are the Way of Truth - shall we hold fast to Jesus and tell the truth, or shall our words and actions declare “I don’t know Him!”?

There is freedom in Christ when we live lives of truth-speaking; we can trust Him and we need not pretend, we need not play the hypocrite with others, we need not play games. When we tell the truth to our own detriment we affirm that we are not our own but that we have been purchased with the blood of the Lamb.

If we desire intimacy with the God of Truth we must learn the Way of Truth, we must live in that Way...as the deer pants after fresh springs of water, our souls are called to thirst after Truth as we live lives of Truth, as the Truth lives in us and through us.