Don’t Abandon the Truth of God’s Word 

I had been noticing a couple of birds building a nest in my wife’s hanging basket on our front porch. They had been working diligently on the project for days. When I took a peek to view their progress, the nest looked almost complete, although no eggs were present yet. However, shortly afterwards I witnessed through the window another slightly larger bird flittering around the porch. As one of the nest-builders was flying back to the basket, this other bird darted toward it, attacked it, and chased it off. I haven’t seen either bird since. It appears that this bully caused the others to abandon their nest.

As followers of Jesus, many of us have built our faith upon the truth of God’s Word. There are those around us who would like to drive us away from the home we have found within the confines of this special revelation from God.  After all, without that objective standard of God’s written revelation, anything could be proclaimed to be true or false, good or evil, right or wrong. As a matter of fact, that is what we are witnessing taking place in our culture today. Truth is looked at as relative and personal rather than being certain and universal. So when some of us still hold to objective truth and believe the Bible is a reliable and authoritative record of messages from God, not just a fallible piece of human literature, we sometimes find ourselves under attack by either individuals or society in general.

This isn’t anything new. Paul alerted Timothy about similar circumstances. He warned of evil individuals who would “resist the truth” and deceive people, while he encouraged Timothy not to abandon what he knew to be true. “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…” (II Timothy 3:14-16).

Granted, there may be times when we need to rethink our views or change long-held beliefs. However, we should do so because we realize what we had been taught or had previously concluded doesn’t align with God’s Word, not because we have been deceived, pressured, or bullied into forsaking the clear teaching of the Bible. And those attacks don’t just come from an ungodly world. They can also come from within the religious community. Some people who claim to be Christians, even ministers, question our faith if we refuse to conform to the twisted values of our day that run counter to what God says in His Word. They accuse us of being unloving, hateful, intolerant, and not like Jesus if we insist on adhering to the more obvious and orthodox interpretations of the Bible rather than accepting the modern spin they put on certain passages of scripture.

Such attempts to get us to abandon truth may sometimes be as blatant and forceful as that bird attack I witnessed. Other times it simply arises as society increasingly puts pressure on those who don’t adhere to its views. They emphasize their twisted version of truth, celebrate it, and attempt to make those who disagree appear to be foolish, out of step, or even dangerous. It will take courage for people to stand firm on the truth when so many are forsaking it.

 Let’s be committed to being people of the Word and of truth. Don’t let this world bully you into abandoning your confidence in the reliability of the Bible. It is still God’s inspired revelation. Believe it. Live by it. Proclaim it. You will be glad you did.