If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. John 7:37b-38

Facing the Truth

            Recently, at our local video rental store, I was delighted to run into a young man I hadn't seen for several years.  He had been in youth group with some of our older, grown kids, but had moved away to attend Christian college.  Now he was back living and working in the area. I asked where he was going to church these days and he named a church I hadn't heard of, explaining that he no longer attended the church in which he grew up.

            "I just got saved a couple of years ago," he told me. "I'm a baby Christian. All those years I thought I was saved because my mom and the other people at that church told me I was saved when I was five!"  He sounded indignant. Like he'd been robbed of something huge and important.  I believe he had.

He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. I John 2:6

            From being in church all his life, this young man knew that he should walk as Christ walked, but because everyone had told him he was already saved, he believed he had all there was to have of Christ and the Holy Spirit who enables Christians to walk righteously. This young man's false belief that he had a relationship with Christ prevented him from looking for anything more.  No wonder he'd found it so difficult to live the Christian life during his teen and young adult life; he wasn't a Christian! 

I think there are probably a lot of people walking around in this same false belief.  They're trusting in an encounter they had as a child, or in some other emotional experience that wasn't really salvation. They consider themselves saved, but they wonder why it's such a battle to choose to do what's right. They wonder why sin seems so alluring.  Instead of fleeing temptation, they wish their sin could be considered righteous, and they try to rationalize away the guilt they feel, all the while falsely believing they know all there is to know of Christ and the power of His resurrection.  Some come to believe that Christ is not able to keep them from sin, and they draw the very wrong conclusion that the fault lies in Him, and not themselves.  How can we know whether we really know Him?

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, "I know Him" and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. I John 2: 3-4

            Do you find keeping His commandments an impossible burden or a joyful privilege? Are you always trying to find ways to justify a walk that isn't like Jesus' own, or is it your heart's desire that your walk look more like His every day? 

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.  And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. I John 2:1

There's hope!  If you've held a false belief about your relationship with Christ, today is the day to face the truth and be set free.  And if you're a person who's been assuring someone who isn't walking like Christ that they have a relationship with Him, it's time for you to face the truth and lovingly help them do the same.  Only the truth can set them free.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

Daye Phillippo

January 2012