Longing for Truth

Monday, December 1, 2025

Today’s Reading: John 8:12-58

Have you ever witnessed a large number of people believing something you know to be a lie? It can be so frustrating. Even if it doesn’t affect you one way or the other, there is something within you that wants to set the record straight. Why? Why do we have that desire? 

There may be times when we want the truth hidden, though. Why do we both long for truth to be known but sometimes also long to hide it? It basically boils down to what the truth is exposing. The circumstances surrounding mom’s broken lamp aren’t scary to reveal when it was your sister who broke it, right? Your sister may feel differently, though. We are made in the image of God, so there is something within us that acknowledges the goodness of Truth. Even a convenient deception (like a guilty sister blaming her brother, perhaps) is uncomfortable. Lying may get us out of trouble immediately, but it sits like a rock in our gut because we know we will be accountable for that untruth eventually. 

On the other hand, it’s also unnatural to want the darkest recesses of my heart exposed to other people, let alone before a holy God. Maybe we convince ourselves that by denying truth, we can somehow be exempt from accountability. Or perhaps that God-given, broad sense of truth within us makes us believe we can’t be fully accepted or loved if we are fully known. 

John 8:31 (NIV) says, “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, 'If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” What truth? When we know God’s Word (which is truth — John 17:17), we know several big truths simultaneously: 

1) We are, by nature, far from God because of our sin; 

2) God loves us enough to offer a relationship with Him through the blood of Jesus; 

3) We can therefore no longer be slaves to sin, but now willing servants to Christ. 

That’s the truth to which Jesus refers, and in a cosmic mystery, all the truth of the ages — the truth of righteousness and redemption — is found wrapped up in the person of Jesus, the Word made flesh.

Now Satan sees us processing all this, and he will take advantage of every opportunity to keep us from those truths. He was the first to “live his own truth,” and it was because he didn’t want to be accountable to the Truth, God Himself. He wanted to be God. So he will lie to us to manipulate our own self-idolatry. “Did God really say…?” He will accuse us (Rev 12:10), confirming doubts that God could love us. He will convince us that we also need to live a lie to “be free.” Listen to what Jesus said of the enemy when addressing some Jews who had determined in their hearts to kill Him:

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV).

So we have this battle raging around us and within us. Most of the time, I think spiritual warfare is more of a quiet battle for truth than it is a power struggle on display. How many times did Jesus warn, “See that no one deceive you”? We must be girded with Truth. Jesus is truth. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6 NIV)

A thought on the Church’s “battle” for truth: In our human imperfection, we can never quite communicate truth and love, holiness and grace accurately. We tend to overemphasize one to the detriment of the other. I pray God makes up for what we lack in our presentation of His gospel. Deep down, we know what is true, though (Romans 1:19-20, Jeremiah 31:33).

This is what I know. I lied to myself for years to excuse my rebellion against God. That’s true. He loved me even when I ran from him. That’s true. If He had left me in the condition I was in, I would have been lost from His presence forever. That’s true. He didn’t leave me. He redeemed me. He saved me. That’s true. And when the enemy speaks lies, I stand on the Truth of this gospel of Jesus, my Savior.