Proverbs 12:19-20

The one who tells the truth will endure forever,
but the one who lies will last only for a moment.
Deceit is in the heart of those who plot evil,
but those who promote peace have joy.

Truth seems to be a pretty big deal to God. And yet, it’s a surprisingly small deal to the world. I guess that would make since since they are at odds with each other. But for a world that was created by God, it seems like truth would be a given. Especially since Jesus was the Truth and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.

But it’s not. Of course we can understand why. Truth is hard. Sometimes telling the truth is hard. People don’t always want to hear the truth. We don’t always want to share the truth. But still, we see that truth is the foundation for eternity while lying brings the end.

Truth is also the reason we have war. Because there are others who think they have the truth, they think they must exterminate those whose truth is different than theirs. But, I would ask you, which seems more trustworthy – murder or mission? Sure, we’ve all been annoyed by people of various religious groups knocking on our doors, claiming their truth is better than our truth. But, I would argue that any truth that has to murder its opponents must not have a very strong argument. Thats kind of the worst kind of arguing right? “I don’t agree with you…” bang.

Why is truth such a big deal? Aside from the “God made truth and that make it important” argument, there are other reasons. If truth doesn’t exist, then neither does anything else. You can’t have morals without truth because you can’t have a right response and a wrong response without truth. You can’t have good and evil without truth, because who defines good as good and what do all the words that define it mean? You can’t do basic addition without truth, because I would decide that 2 + 2 equals cat.

My point is, everything unravels. Which might be a clue into our current cultural state. It’s hard to make decisions when the rules keep changing. It’s hard to create a life when the boundaries keep getting messed with.

What is in our heart? Do we promote a life of peace based on truth or do we plot evil? If you really want to know God and his ways, you must believe and speak the truth. Then I think you will see that His ways are better than our own. And I truly believe, if we could all seek to live by His truth, we could really have world peace.