How Sweet It Is!

     I started a new book this week by one of my favorite authorities on Jonathan Edwards.  It's A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George Marsden, and it is very short in comparison to his much larger work on Edwards, which I had to read for a seminary course.  Spiritually, I can identify with Edwards in regards to his struggle with assurance of salvation.  The presence of sin in one's life can cause one to doubt that a real change has taken place in his or her life.  One should never compare his or her experience with another's, but Edwards' sins really seem trifling compared to my own.  I guess anyone comparing themselves to another can say the same.
     I've written about it a few times before, but Edwards' sermon abbreviated A Divine And Supernatural Light really speaks to me.  In it, he uses the example of honey to distinguish the difference between knowing about God and really knowing God.  I love honey.  I like to use it in so many ways.  But I like good honey.  I can tell the difference between the kind you get in the little bear bottle, a packet at Chick-Fil-A, and good, locally harvested honey.  Guess which one I like.  If you understood my distinctions between the types of honey, you'd assume I know something about honey.  I know that Walmart gets theirs mostly from Argentina, that the most common pollen for commercial honey comes from clover, and that homegrown honey has insect parts in it that has to be refined out before it can be used in recipes.  What good does all this knowledge about honey do for me?  If I've never tasted it, then I really don't know honey.  Until I've tasted its goodness, I can't appreciate its lingering sweetness and ability to adhere to the foods that I want influenced by it.
     In our study on God's Word, we can learn a lot about the God who wrote it.  However, unless we really know the God behind His word, we don't really know God.  God has allowed us to really know Him because he has stooped to our level in the person of Jesus Christ.  By putting on flesh and blood, He has given us someone who has been through humanity, so we can relate to Him and really know Him.
     This Wednesday we'll be learning about the external evidences for the truth of the Bible.  Without the God who gives it authority however, it's just another thing we can know about God.  But, if we are in a relationship with the God of the Bible, it tells us so much more than an ordinary volume of words can tell us.  The Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ reveals it to us and lets us not just know about God, but really know Him in the sweetness of His Son, Jesus Christ.

No Perfect Truths?

     "What is truth?"  This is what Pontius Pilate asked Jesus when he was brought before him to determine if Jesus should be crucified or not (John 18:38).  Today the only accepted truth is what you want to believe.  This of course, makes NO logical sense!  How can truth be anything but what it is . . . absolute?  If truth is subjective (what you think it is) then can it be real truth?  Is the world flat if I want to believe it is?  If you say there is "no absolute truth," you're making an absolute statement which contradicts itself, because truth, by its very nature, has to be objective (absolute; meaning it has a standard or rule which makes it so).  "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" (John 14:6)  Now that's an absolute statement!
     In the song "Unobstructed Views" by Death Cab for Cutie, the lyrics are as follows:  "There's no eye in the sky/Just our love/No unobstructed views/No perfect truths/Just our love."  The first time I heard this song, I immediately recognized the worldview which is one of denial.  But, denying that God exists, isn't going to make Him go away, nor the truth of His Word.  In a later track on the album "Codes and Keys" called "St Peter's Cathedral," the song laments the waste of such a grand structure for the worship of a god which doesn't exist.  The composer repeats over and over again, "there's nothing past this."  This of course, is what he wants to believe because without the eyes of faith (which has to be given to him by God Himself), he really can't knowingly say there is no afterlife.  It's funny to me that one has to make an absolute statement when denying the existence of absolutes.
     This Wednesday, we'll open our study at Christ Church youth group asking the question, "What makes the Bible unique?"  Those of us who know God in Christ, not only believe that absolute truth exists as the standard set forth in the Bible, but because the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes in regeneration, we know that it is the absolute TRUTH.