Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 38. Living in God’s Truth (my salvation is the ending to His story)

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Hello human.

We are spending time with the apostle John today to consider what “living His truth” means. Because Jesus is the truth.

In John chapter 14, during a time when Jesus was comforting His disciples—during the familiar “let not your heart be troubled” conversation—He told them that they know the place where He is going.

But they needed more:

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  John 14: 5-6

He went on to say that if they know him, they know the Father.

Jesus is the way, Jesus is the life, but today I want to share what is on my heart about when Jesus said, “I am the truth.”

That Jesus is the truth. Over half the New Testament uses of “truth” are in John’s gospel.

Jesus is truth personified. He is the divine being, and the only measure by which we know truth in our lives.

I grew up hearing, “just tell the truth – just always tell me what happened.” I am thankful for that because it made truth a good thing. Telling the truth was a safety net for getting in trouble, whether intentional or otherwise. A way out. As I got older, I came to know it as a way forward.

And it made lying too complicated. But what has stayed with me is that it is the foundation for living.

The Origin of Truth

Truth dwells in the God of Genesis, the God who created the heavens and the earth with His spirit and His word:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And the God of John 1:14, when the Word became flesh.

John 1:14

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And then to the disciples, and to us. How so? In John 17 Jesus is praying for his disciples.  He says to his Father,

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Jesus asks his heavenly Father to sanctify his disciples by the truth, that God’s word is truth. The same Word that said, “Let there be light.”

Accepting God’s Truth is a Specific Moment

Consider this familiar exchange between Pilate and Jesus:

Pilate didn’t wait for an answer, was not sincere, yet defined through his actions that truth is to serve the purposes in front of us… he was impatient and anxious to resolve the issue and decided Jesus was no threat as a king as he had been accused, so Pilate wanted to be done with it. He qualified his truth by saying he could see no violation of the law. The mob’s truth was different, to justify their judgement of Jesus.

John 18:37-38

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.

I bring this up because it was in that moment, that challenge of the truth split three ways: the mob, Pilate, and Jesus. Yet Jesus responded to Pilate’s question with silence. Pilate had turned away, and Jesus knew he was not sincere. Because Pilate’s truth was whatever served his purposes. Pilate was anxious to get to the mob with his own response, his own truth. When he could have turned toward Jesus and opened his heart to who Jesus was. What a moment that would have been.

What We Find in Jesus, the Truth

The definitions given for the Greek word for truth (al-ay’-thi-a) are helpful for daily life.

Objectively, one definition is two-fold:

the truth as taught in the Christian religion, respecting God, and the execution of his purposes through Christ, and respecting the duties of man, opposing alike to the superstitions of the Gentiles and the inventions of the Jews, and the corrupt opinions and precepts of false teachers even among Christians.

We dilute, compromise, oppose the truth, we invent something else, and call it truth just as they did when Jesus walked this earth.

And subjectively, two definitions

truth as a personal excellence

that candor of mind, which is free from affection, pretense, simulation, falsehood, deceit.

I love personal excellence, and especially the connotation of excellence, the highest bar of conduct. And I want to be free from pretense, simulation, and deceit… but how do we do this practically speaking.

John 8:31-32

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So, this is what I hold to.  

How Jesus lived, what He said, how He showed His love to His disciples, how He treated people, how He healed, what He promised, what He asks me to do, what He died for, who He sent to take care of me until He comes back. I hold on to the Holy Spirit.

John 14:15-31

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth.

The Spirit of what? The Spirit of truth.

This is what I gain.

I gain respite from the chase, the pursuit of life’s meaning.

Because I know the truth that sanctifies me.

That is, the Truth of the kingdom and sovereignty of God,

How creation came to be.

Why we were created.

How we fell.

Who redeemed us back into the arms of the Father.

What will happen to me when I die.

Or what will happen to me when I hear the shout, and the trumpet sounds.

Whichever comes first.

I know what happens next.

Because my salvation is the ending to His story. I am living His truth.

The apostle Mark shares what Jesus said to his disciples on a busy day,

Mark 6:31

31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

A man who is the truth does that. He gives us rest.

Now, the only thing I have to seek is knowing the truth maker, to draw closer to Him.

The Holy Spirit does that with me, testifies for me:

In relationships, that I give them to God to reveal and represent the truth. Sometimes it is hard to discern what is true in our relationships with others, what is affection (a swaying of the emotion), pretense (a thinly veiled imitation of the truth), simulation (acting truthful), deceit (calling a lie “my truth”), but God lays it on our hearts. He lays it on my heart, so I know how to love in His name.

In navigating this world that often seems like a house of mirrors. The world has created, layered, manufactured, redefined truth to meet personal desires. To serve self. It sounds harsh, but I include myself with respect to certain choices I make that do not align with our God, who is the word, who is thetruth, who is the life of Jesus. Because as humans we are always looking for another way, a different way, a way that justifies independence, an untethering from the God who created us.

I lay my trust in the Spirit of truth navigating deeper waters with me. I know the original, divine construct of what God created, what life with Him is, and how to grow in His truth.

I have the signed first edition of the Truth. God autographed my heart before I was born.

Growing in His Truth

The human heart longs for truth. But the longing comes from our Creator, so it is not a longing for just any truth, only the truth. All else is created by the human condition.

All of this is to answer to the cultural narrative about giving people space for “their truth”, for the need to discover, explore, defend, cling to a truth that they call their own. I can affirm that until it is Jesus, it will not be enough. No amount of acceptance, confirmation, affirmation from someone else, or crowds of human support will make a truth unhinged from God enough to stop the pursuit and find rest.

I am so inspired by John’s heart. In the third letter of John’s three epistles, he writes to a dear friend:

3 John 1:3

1 The elder,

To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth.

2 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3 It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

Thank you, John.

I just want to say this: I love living in His truth, and to you, human, I have no greater wish than you walk in His truth, that we walk together.

“Let there be light.”