Can it pass the test?

Have you ever been told something, only to find out it wasn't true at all? I think we have all bought one of those 'miracle', 'wonder', 'amazing', or 'as seen on...' products at some time in our lives. I remember mom getting all this stuff from one of the 'clearing houses' that really wasn't all that good, but if she bought it, she felt it increased her chances of becoming a millionaire. We all 'buy into' an outright untruth at one time or another, don't we? The bigger the lie, the harder it is to 'sell', but so many seem to 'buy into' various lies of the enemy of their souls without giving it a second thought. The biggest lie we can buy into is that God has turned his back on a lost and hurting world. God never turns his back, always has a way of escape for those who will look toward him and will always be the ultimate authority no matter what other authority attempts to set themselves up above him.

For the word of the Lord holds true, and we can trust everything he does. He loves whatever is just and good; the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth. (Psalm 33:4-5)

God's word holds true - we cannot escape the truth within his word. We cannot add to it, take away from it, or 'make it say what we want it to say'. It is unalterable! God will always stand for what is just and good. He will never compromise that truth. It is good for us to remember that God doesn't have to 'sell' his 'agenda' to anyone. He reveals his grace, love, and peace - then we are free to embrace it or leave it alone. God hasn't turned his back on his people, even when it appears that all is amiss in our world at the moment, we cannot ever believe the lie that God has abandoned us. His power still reigns supreme. His purposes are still to bring hurting people into his presence, embracing them in his love, and regenerating their hearts and minds so they can enjoy the peace and freedom of grace.

Test all you hear. Some may have turned their backs on 'fact checking' the things they see and hear today, but we need to be 'fact checkers' in all we hear, see, are asked to embrace. We cannot blatantly just adopt a stance that if 'he or she said it', it must be true. We need to take what we hear and see to the Word of God and see what God says about it. Remember this - all lies are wrapped in some element of truth. Even the 'wonder', 'amazing', 'miracle', and 'as seen on...' stuff we 'buy into' has some element of truth to it. It just doesn't live up to all the hype! Just sayin!

Tested and True?

In the past there were false prophets among God’s people. It is the same now. You will have some false teachers in your group. They will teach things that are wrong—ideas that will cause people to be lost. And they will teach in a way that will be hard for you to see that they are wrong. They will even refuse to follow the Master who bought their freedom. And so they will quickly destroy themselves. Many people will follow them in the morally wrong things they do. And because of them, others will say bad things about the way of truth we follow. These false teachers only want your money. So they will use you by telling you things that are not true. But the judgment against these false teachers has been ready for a long time. And they will not escape God who will destroy them. (2 Peter 2:1-3)

We are living in a time when believers are bombarded on all sides by one teaching after another - in media of all forms, in personal contact, and even from our public 'pulpits'. We must know how to evaluate the teaching of those we choose to listen to as wise students of the Word. We must learn to filter out the truth from the lie - God gives us the ability to do so, but so many choose just to 'blindly believe' all they hear and see. Understanding in the spiritual sense is never from a man's own understanding - it has come because God has granted that individual the wisdom to understand. We need God's protection over our lives in order to avoid falling prey to any manner of 'false teaching'.

Ideas that will cause people to be lost - those words really say it all. We would not believe an outright lie, would we? We might believe it if it was 'sandwiched' deep inside some truth from God's Word, though. That is how the false prophet works - he brings the 'untruth' with just enough truth that we imagine it must be true, as well. Eventually, that untruth will take us down paths God says we were to avoid entirely, but we were 'duped' into believing it was okay to travel them anyway. One thing about those who bring false teaching is pretty apparent - they 'use you by telling you things that are not true'. If we were to evaluate their teaching against truth in God's Word, we might find little bits and pieces of 'untruth' has been mixed in - muddying the teaching of God in small ways at first and then in bigger ways later on.

This is why it is so important for us to discover God's Word for ourselves. We must allow it to get into our hearts and spirits so we can recognize any untruth when it is cleverly masked within truth. God also gave us his Holy Spirit who will bear witness to truth but will also give us an uneasy feeling toward any untruth that we may encounter. When that uneasiness comes, we can either reject it and continue to just go along with the false teaching, or we can heed it, rejecting the teaching as unwise, unhealthy, and untrue. The Bereans were commended as those who took every teaching and compared it to the scriptures. They 'tested' the teaching they heard to see if it was true. We'd do well to do the same! Just sayin!