Evil UNMASKED!! Ten Truth Theses for Easter 2021

I share here, ten truth theses, established from the school of hard knocks. Enjoy!

In Q1 1979, seeking truth I found the Truth. I encountered Christ. I didn’t especially want to ‘get God’, particularly the Christian variety but getting ‘zapped‘ like I have previously described it, called me out, because I was a natural truth-seeker. Finding that the abstract concept of truth was actually a person (that necessitated a relationship) changed my life!

Here are some of the lessons I have learned along the way:

1. It is self-evident that truth exists. The falsehood of the alternative can be proven by asking, “Are you sure [that truth doesn’t exist]?”
2. Truth can only be found by the application of sound logic onto facts. If we get our facts wrong or fail in the application of sound logic, then we will err.
3. Evidence of design requires the existence of a Designer. I see evidence of design therefore there is a Designer. We call the Designer, God (in a Christian sense the Lord God, otherwise the Source, Creator, Father and more) and it is normal to capitalise reference to Him.
4. Christians accept & believe that the bible is God’s written word and that the Holy Spirit is God’s living word. The two do not conflict. Having ‘met’ Christ and committed to Him, I am a Christian.
5. It is impossible to prove a negative (without knowing all, i.e. being God, which I am not).
6. The essence of the Old Testament is that God exhorts us to hear and obey Him (of course there is more).
7. The essence of the New Testament is the Gospel of Christ. He is the Way the Truth and the Life (and more).
8. Christ claims to have ‘an exclusive lien on the truth’ (“No one comes to the Father but by Me”) therefore this claim requires perfection which is indeed evidenced by the record of His life and His living presence today in the here and now.
9. The Christian world-view has validity. In more than 50 years of searching and observing, I have yet to find valid alternatives or exceptions.
10. The Christian world-view sees a world that God created ‘good’, but that evil entered at the Fall in the Garden of Eden. The entrance of sin destroyed mankind’s relationship with the Creator, but individual faith in and obedience to Christ provides the solution and restores that relationship. While there are minor differences of belief, this is the essence of Christianity.

My blogging and writing is “from a Christian world-view”. I attempt to speak the truth in love, approaching proselytism from the perspective that any living God will do the needful in others’ lives as he did with me.

This indirect ‘hands-off approach’ concurs with scriptural guidance as well when the bible speaks of the central role of the Holy Spirit in touching people. Putting this in the negative, other than those around me who spoke the truth as they saw it, because no human had any role in the personal experience I had in 1979. Likewise in my writing, I trust that simply speaking the truth as I see it, “God will do His business” with others in His way and in His time, as He so chooses.

There is a wealth of wisdom that follows the above train of truth . . . Analysis of the source of evil is interesting. Following the way that pride manifests shows us how sin affects the world, in particular I see two trains of coming to Christ – via truth and via love.

It is only on the Cross of Christ that I have ever seen truth and love in fullness. An overly strong focus on truth leads to a religious fervour and a hardness that is ungodly, whereas an overly strong focus on love opens us to the realm of feeling where truth is often parked. Speaking the truth in love appears to be His way. I attempt to do this as honesty as I can.

Focusing on pride for a moment, shows me that pride is a plinth where the two pillars (of pain and fear) support all anti-social, self-destructive and ungodly behaviour.

I have blogged about this previously using the following graphic:

While there are always the physical, social and emotional factors present in any situation the true long-term solution to any required behavioural change (be this anything anti-social, self-destructive or ungodly) is humility. Humility (like love) is not a feeling . . . it is a choice.

This is why I often conclude a post or a chapter with an exhortation to choose to do the right or honourable thing. Thanks for swinging by again today!