Does Jesus tell the Truth?

John 6:37-40

Carroll Ray Jr. was very accomplished as a CPA, a Vice President of the Tandy Corp., teacher of history and the Scriptures, a husband to Joyce, and a dad to his children, and a friend to many, I being one of them, but of all that he accomplished, it was his ability to believe that Jesus tells the truth, and his acting on that truth made an impression on my life.

Carroll often would say that the only real way to define faith is “Acting like Jesus tells the truth.”  Life on planet earth seems to be filled with ups and downs, success and failure, joy and sadness, hope and the lack of hope, loss and gain, but at the end of the day no matter how great or how bad it was, the question still must be answered; “Does Jesus tell the truth?”

We Christians often use code words that the world around us has no understanding of, words like, salvation, being born again, redeemed, saved, eternal security, just to list a few.  Eternal security or you might say "unconditional assurance," and "once saved, always saved" are hard to understand because of you and I being “Time-Critters.” 

As a “Time Critter” we live in 60 minutes to the hour, 24 hours to the day, and seven days to the week, and a year has 365 days, that is the compass we live life by.  But our Creator is the designer of that system and it has no authority over Him.  So when Jesus tells us in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I choose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”  So the question must be asked, when did God choose us? 

The answer is simple, maybe that is why so many miss it, God has no past and He has no future, He is always in the present, so much of what God says about you and me happen outside of our time-line.  The Psalmist give us insight into this truth in Psalm 139:15-16, “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”  In no way does this take away your freedom to choose, and before the foundation of the world God chose to send His Son to pay for your sin, knowing fully that many would reject His Son.

This is why faith being defined as acting like Jesus tells the truth is so important; because Jesus said once you enter into a personal relationship with him he will never cast you out.  That eternal security or you might say "unconditional assurance," and "once saved, always saved."  “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice