Freedom Through Truth

If your life were to end within the next 24 hours, would you REALLY be ready to stand before God? This question prompted me to do a little self-examination. You see, I don’t believe Christians receive a “get out of Hell” card just because we say the sinner’s prayer and then we can do whatever we want. As Christians, we still make mistakes and sometimes we make bad decisions. Maybe I am just talking to myself on this one, but sometimes I try to justify my faulty decisions by comparing my decisions to others’. There have been times when I have searched dozens of online articles in my desire to rationalize what I wanted to do. The ironic thing about searching online is that there are always others who may share our beliefs or philosophies, but that doesn’t mean that they are correct. They’re just “like” minded. In fact, there have been times when I have found dozens of articles that would say and reiterate the exact same thing about what certain scripture verses meant. Then I would come across the one that said something that was more pleasing to what I wanted to believe and that was the one that I really wanted to accept as truth. If I were to accept those “alternative” interpretations as truth though, then who would I really be fooling?

John J. Parsons, a minister who helps clarify the Hebrew meaning of scripture for Christians wrote, “Self-deception is a universal condition of mankind. The scripture declares, “Every man’s way is right in his eyes” indicating that by nature we are self-justifying creatures, prone to believe our own “propaganda” and wishful thinking. We are apt to be biased in our self-examination and ready to excuse ourselves at every turn, rationalizing our behavior and suppressing the truth about ourselves in order to quell the voice of conscience within our hearts. When faced with an inconsistency between our behavior and our romanticized self-image, we often regard ourselves as something other than what we really are. In short, we deceive ourselves.”

I have found over the years though that I can’t really even trick myself into believing my own self-deceptions. As Christians, God put within us an inner voice that tells us when we are doing something that is not in alignment with his nature or his Word. As hard as we try, when we are outside his will we don’t have the same peace and joy that God allows us to have when we are within his will. When we are outside God’s will, we can still have momentary fun and happiness, but the true peace and joy that we really desire eludes us. In essence, we are trading temporary happiness and self-gratification for long term peace and joy.  

What is the remedy? It is through the honest confession of our condition, repentance and the turning away from those behaviors which we know are outside God’s will for our lives that we find healing. As Jesus said, you shall then know the truth, and “the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

So let’s revisit the question again. If your life were to end within the next 24 hours, would you REALLY be ready to stand before God?