City of Refuge Fellowship

I was doing a little bit of reading yesterday and stumbled upon this statement by Arthur Wallis: “Truth is like a portrait, and to exaggerate one feature is to turn the portrait into a caricature of the truth.” I have spent a lot of time thinking about this sentence over the last 24 hours. Truth is of ultimate importance and we need a clear portrait to follow, believe and present. Over the last few weeks I have heard people in different settings talk about “stretching the truth”, “bending the truth”, “avoiding the truth”, even being “creative with the truth”. So, to quote Pilate, “What is truth?”, the portrait not the caricature.

Pilate asked the question and then walked away, not waiting to hear Jesus’ response, I believe, because he wasn’t willing to accept the answer. Jesus had already said in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth and the life”. He couldn’t be much clearer, Jesus didn’t come to teach us about the truth, He came because He was the truth. He brought it to us, and became it among us. He is not merely the keeper, purveyor or dispenser of truth, He is the actual incarnation of it. Apart from Jesus there is no truth.

In our weakness, maybe it’s more our fallen state than weakness, we speak of and think of the truth as having levels, as having ins and outs, colors or degrees. In his book, Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby answers these thoughts with this simple assertion, “Truth is a person.” If he is right then truth is absolute, truth is personal, truth is unwavering and truth is divine. If truth is divine then we, the mortals, can not alter it, mold it for our liking or change it for our benefit. Truth endures, remains and overcomes. Jesus said “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Freedom can’t come from man or even from mans inventions, freedom can only come from the Creator. Truth is not in our hands, we are actually in the hands of truth. As Colossians says of Jesus, “All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things are held together.”

I want to finish by going back to the quote that launched me on this thought process. If truth is a portrait then a caricature is what we come up with when we try to shape truth to fit our liking, our personality, our purposed calling or our set belief system. Have you ever had your caricature done? The artist takes a look, gets a good idea of your general image and then chooses, according to his liking the part that he wants to emphasize and those parts that he decides are secondary. The rendering doesn’t have to be accurate, there is no need to be careful of details because the image is not even meant to give detail, just an exaggerated, usually comical image. Haven’t we at times become caricature artists of the truth, of the gospel? Are we not all guilty of taking what we like and putting it out in front, and those things that are hard, convicting or personally too painful we allow to just fall in line later, smaller? Today I think we need to check the truth. We need to go back and read everything that Jesus said and carefully pay attention to everything that Jesus did. If we want the truth, we must want Jesus. If we are to carry the truth, we must carry Jesus. Remember, it is not our understanding of truth, our presentation of truth, our expert handling of truth that sets men free, it is the truth itself. Jesus sets us free, don’t be afraid of Him, don’t be ashamed of Him and don’t take liberties with Him. Let the truth speak, He will not disappoint or fall short, He will finish the work that He has started. Let’s make a vow, no more caricatures, no more man made, man picked truths. The thoughts of man bring bondage, but the knowledge of Christ, well, He said it Himself, “The truth shall make you free.”

How good are you at waiting? Strange question I know but it is something that I am desperately in need of improving in my life. God has been showing me that I don’t always wait very well. You know the guy at the Motor Vehicles that came knowing it would be a long wait but still paces, looks at his watch, mumbles under his breath and seems genuinely shocked and annoyed that he has to wait? That has been me too many times in my life. Contrast that with the people that knew they were going to wait so they brought a book, came without an agenda or decided to chat with someone sitting next to them to make the experience a pleasant one. Why is it that some people are impatient and others have learned, better yet, chosen to wait well?

The first thing that I have had to learn about patience is that it is not an emotion it is character. It is not a feeling that comes because I want or need it to it is a worked out built up part of who I am that is either present or absent, it does not come and go. James wrote “Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Patience is to our character what muscle is to our bodies. It is not a matter of want to, it must be trained, built up and established within us. For years I have heard people laugh and say, “don’t ever pray for patience.” While I understand that this is meant to be a joke, it is actually a very faith stunting thought. The joke is really the hope of our flesh (human nature, emotions, desires), that we will not have to endure the difficulty that building patience will require.

Impatience is the great reducer of our dreams, promises and destinies. In the here and now, I have driven to a restaurant that I truly want to eat at, seen a long line and chosen to go someplace inferior simply because I didn’t want to wait thirty minutes to be seated. If I will do that in the natural, I will also do it in my spiritual life. There are many times in which God calls us to wait, if I have not allowed Him to build up patience in my life I am susceptible to choosing something inferior, to taking what I can come up with rather than waiting for what I know is sent from heaven. Isn’t this exactly what happened when Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham? When Moses chose to kill the Egyptian taskmaster because he was called to be Israel’s deliverer? When Jacob chose to get Isaac’s blessing by deceit rather than favor? Even when Peter pulled out his sword to fight for Jesus on the night of His arrest? I have done it as well. I have settled for less than what was promised because I wanted something now more than everything later.

Impatience is about more than impulse, it is also about mistrust. The hard truth that I am facing and repenting of right now is that if I truly believe that God will provide for all of my needs, that He “knows the plans that He has for me” and that His love for me is great then I must trust Him enough to wait and wait patiently. Paul wrote, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” Patience is ultimately the faith to believe that God will do everything He has ever promised, not because I am ready but because His timing is perfect. If I trust God, I must be patient, I must believe so fully in His love for me that I don’t balk, don’t fight and don’t quit, but let patience have its perfect work in me.

The final and most important reason that patience is so important is that it is a part of who God is. Romans 15:5 calls Him “The God of patience.” We see how He has been patient with us, how he is longsuffering in His will that none would perish and that patience is a work/fruit of the Holy Spirit. But maybe the most powerful example of God’s patience is not something that someone else said about Him, or even an act on someone else’s behalf. When God descended in a cloud and stood with Moses to give him the second set of tablets He declared His own name. God Himself passed before Moses and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering (patient, slow to anger) and abounding in goodness and truth”. If longsuffering is so fully a part of God’s character that He proclaims it Himself, then shouldn’t it be a part of His character that we seek to have Him build in us? Patience is much more than a virtue, it is a part of who God is and truly, it is a promise of who we are able to be. He can make us whole, He can make us clean, and he can make us complete. We must choose to let go of our control and let Him make us patient. With patience comes more than we have ever asked or imagined.

Have you ever taken notice that “no” seems to be the first word that children really grasp the meaning of? With both of my boys, they started by saying “Momma“, then “Daddy” and then they both jumped right to the adamant and emphatic use of the word “no”. I guess they hear that word so much as they reach for outlets, stick things in DVD players and investigate every new thing by putting it in their mouths that they quickly come to know the meaning of the word.
In Luke 9:23 Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” This week I came across a note written by my Greek professor from Valley Forge. The note gave a different spin to the Greek term found in this verse, translated “let him deny himself” in the New King James Version. Professor Joyner wrote, “arnaysatho–he says no to himself.” For some reason, as I read that it had much more impact than “let him deny himself.” I had to honestly sit and ask myself, “when do I say no to me?” And then, as I prayed and mediated I began to realize that this verse is Jesus explaining how to be like Him. If I am to “come after” Him, to follow Him, to be like Him I am going to have to have my character forged and changed into His likeness. Did anyone ever say no to himself more than Jesus? He said no to his glory and came to earth as one of us. He said no to His power and chose to allow Himself to be mocked, ridiculed, lied about and betrayed. He said no to His will and chose the will of His Father and bore the cross. The more I studied this the more that I realized that from the very beginning God has been saying no to Himself on my behalf. While I was His enemy He died for my sins. When I was powerless He chose to love me. When I continue to be selfish He continues to be selfless. He will be faithful even when I am faithless.
The road to the cross is not a decision to say yes, it is a willingness to say no. I will never get to the point of taking up the cross to follow Jesus if I will not first say no to myself. The rich young man refused to say no to his riches and went away sad. Pilate refused to say no to his ambition and the voices of men and had Jesus put to death. The Pharisees refused to say no to their position and pride and denied the Messiah. Judas refused to say no to his greed and zeal for his understanding of the cause and became the betrayer of Christ. This list is as long as the road to destruction is wide. The only way to walk the narrow path of life is to say no to ourselves. Jesus did it constantly, in fact He still does it. The Father modeled it from the beginning of time and continues as He holds back Christ’s return so that more mercy may be poured out. Will we? Will we say no to ourselves today? Will we say no to our shame, our ambition, our comfort, our dreams and our made up minds? Will we say no to ourselves so that we can walk in the path of the cross, the path of freedom, the path of salvation? Never has more been gained than in the moment that we choose to say no to ourselves and yes to the cross. This week I think I may have discovered that the path of full and true deliverance is not hard to find but it is hard to say. I don’t know about you, but I need to say no much more often.

For a year or more I have considered throwing my hat into the wonderful ring of blogging. My wife has often encouraged me to give it a try as a way to both keep a record and share some of my thoughts, experiences and lessons that I’m learning. I have been reluctant for no good reason so after some extra encouragement from a few friends here we are.

I don’t believe that this page will end up being daily observations or family anecdotes very often but you just never know. My hope is that I will be able to faithfully and openly communicate the things that I’m learning, the changes and growth that God is making in my life and a few words of encouragement that might help someone else along the “path of righteousness” that we were all created to travel.

However you may end up here I hope and pray that you will read something that will help you to know more fully “what is the width and length and depth and height” of the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.