The ReturnSample

Return to Truth

God invites us to return and build our lives on the foundation of His truth. This is opposite to how God’s people had decided to live: they’d abandoned His ways and scorned His message, preferring to live by injustice and shape their lives on lies (Isaiah 30:12). We so easily do the same—believing convenient deceptions that make us feel better about ourselves, our decisions, or our circumstances.

We can count on the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s truth to us, but it’s harder to follow through and apply His instructions to our lives. James unpacks this difference between knowing God’s truth and actually doing something about it, in James 1:22–25. Those who listen to the truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit and then act upon it are blessed. What’s more, as we apply the truth to our lives—acting in obedience to God’s instructions—we begin to reflect His holiness.

The word ‘holy’ means separateness, being set apart, or otherness. God is so other compared to other so-called gods that we, who belong to Him, are called to be other when compared to those who don’t yet belong to Him. We should inspire a watching world because we’re so other in our kindness, forgiveness, generosity, love, service, mercy, and justice. Of course, we can’t do this in our own strength and need to rely on the Holy Spirit working in and through us.

Truth helps us receive instruction from the Lord and reflect His holiness, and it also saves us from our tendency to expect comfort. Author James Finley explains that ‘God does not always prevent the tragic, the cruel, or the unfair. Instead, He is intimately hidden in the depths of the very tragedy—a tender sweetness that carries us, moment by moment, through life, death, and beyond.’ To reject hardship as part of life in God and replace it with the idea that everything should always go our way is to build our life on lies, like God’s people did in Isaiah 30. If you’re in a hard season now, perhaps consider what it might look like for you to do a metaphorical trust fall into the arms of God. If God is urging you to let go of your agenda in a particular area of your life, what’s your next step?

Return to God and build your life on His unshakeable truth. You’ll be blessed with peace and joy as you do so. Truth makes us willing to receive instruction from God. Truth helps us live lives that reflect God’s glory and holiness. And truth helps us accept that suffering is part of everyone’s story and we can rest secure on the solid foundation of God’s presence in the midst of our hardship. May we be known as those who draw people to Jesus because the way we live and love is so remarkably different from anything on offer from the world.