The Lies We Believe

by Dr. Chris Thurman

  “Yes.”

  “Give me some examples.”

  “Okay. One of the basic principles we worked on together is the idea that what you think dictates how healthy you are and how well you handle life. The Bible is full of statements about how important it is to have the same attitude as Christ, to renew our minds, to take thoughts captive, and to set our minds on the truth and not lies. You were telling yourself a number of lies about things going on in your life, and you were paying a high price emotionally for having done so. When you started seeing the truth and using it to deal with your problems, you became much more emotionally healthy. The Bible teaches that the truth sets people free, and you have proved that to a certain degree in your life.”

  “So the Bible teaches that what we believe basically determines who we are and how well we handle things?”

  “Yes, and it emphasizes truth as the ‘eyewear’ through which we need to view life.”

  “What else about our work together came out of the Bible?”

  “The specific truths I taught you all come from the Bible.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, not at all. For example, we worked on ‘to err is human,’ didn’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is the human way of saying what the Bible is talking about in passages such as Romans 3:23 (NIV), where it says, ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ and 1 John 1:8 (NIV), where it says, ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.’ The Bible teaches that it is our natural bent to sin, to miss the moral mark.”

  “So the Bible teaches that everyone messes up and that making mistakes is an inherent part of being a human being.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “What other truths that we worked on came out of the Bible?”

  “Well, we also worked on ‘you don’t have to.’ That truth is taught in the Bible as free will. The Bible teaches that God gave us free will and that we are free to do what we want to do, for better or for worse. We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do. That is why I pushed you to see that you were free not to buy a new home if you didn’t feel it was right, even though your wife might not like it. You came in acting as if you had no free will, and I just tried to remind you that you do.”

  “I assume there is another truth we worked on that came out of the Bible,” Bill said.

  “Sure. We worked on the idea that you can’t please everyone. The Bible makes it clear that we are not here for people’s approval when it says in the books of Colossians and Galatians that we are to do things for God’s approval, not people’s, and that we can’t really serve God if we want the approval of people.”

  “What else do you have up your sleeve about all this?”

  “Well, I do have a final curveball that I want to throw your way.”

  “I figured you did. Give me your best pitch.”

  Human Effort Is Vain Effort

  “Human effort alone to know the truth in any complete way is doomed to fail. We bring our finiteness and fallenness into the effort, and it ends up costing us a clear view of reality. God, on the other hand, brings neither finiteness nor fallenness into the issue of truth. He is the ultimate Source of all truth, and we need Him in our lives for help to know truth. He wants to help us figure out the truth. If we try to understand truth apart from God helping us, I think we labor in vain.”

  “You’re saying that I need to take a very serious look at God and that if I am trying to make sense out of my life apart from Him, I am being foolish.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Without God, there is no ultimate truth, no lasting power to live the truth, and no eternal life. That isn’t me talking. That is God talking.”

  “Well, if God is truth, why do Christians who claim to believe in God seem as messed up as anyone else? I would think that with God on their side to help them know and do the truth, Christians would be the healthiest, most mature group of all.”

  “That is the way it is supposed to work, Bill, but Christians can fall into just as many distorted ideas and beliefs as anybody else if they don’t dedicate themselves on a consistent basis to truth. Saying you believe in God and actually listening to Him and doing things His way, day by day, are two completely different things. Too many Christians are in the former group, and seemingly too few in the latter.”

  “So the bottom line to the whole truth issue is God.”

  “Yes, God is the bottom line. What He inspired people to write in the Bible was His way of telling us the truths we need to know for how to live meaningful, abundant lives. God owns the truth, and the Bible is His Owner’s Manual that He wants us to study so we can know how we are supposed to live.”

  “There’s the answer to my question. You can know truth by pursuing God and studying the Book He wrote on truth.”

  “Yes. How does all that sound to you?”

  “Like a lot to think seriously about.”

  What About You?

  I want to make the same challenge to you that I made to Bill. I want to challenge you to take a serious look at who or what your source of truth is. Are you relying on human reason and understanding to know the truth, or are you relying on the ultimate Source of truth—God? If you are looking for the truth, God is it. Don’t keep looking for truth in places that can’t ultimately satisfy you. Don’t listen to your common sense. Don’t listen to the “experts.” Listen to the Expert.

  If you already believe in God, let me challenge you by suggesting that you may not be listening much better than the nonbeliever to what God is trying to say to you. You may know God is truth but still be listening to your thoughts or somebody else’s as your real source of truth. God’s thoughts have to become your own, or you will not be any healthier or more mature than those who don’t believe in God.

  The psalmist wrote, “I have chosen the way of truth” (Ps. 119:30 NKJV). That is what I want for you—to choose the way of truth as the basis for your life. The way of truth pays huge dividends, that is certain. But more importantly, the way of truth takes you to God, the Source of all truth and eternal life. The way of truth provides it all—peace and contentment here on earth that go beyond our circumstances and eternal life in heaven that will be more wonderful than we can ever begin to grasp. Choose the way of truth and have it all.

  Growthwork

  The assignment for this chapter may well be the most important assignment of all. I want you to grab your journal and answer the following question: Who is my source of truth?

  If your answer is God, then I want you to take the next step by answering the following question in your journal: Do I really believe what God says? Be completely honest in answering. Be willing to acknowledge areas of your life where you are living in ways that indicate you don’t truly believe what God says (being anxious about whether or not you will find a job when God promises to meet “all your needs,” or feeling worthless when God says you are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” or accumulating things here on earth when God says that we are to “lay up treasures in heaven”).

  If your source of truth is not God, then I want you to take the next step by answering the following question: Why do I trust myself or other people as my authority on truth? Be honest in answering. If you are relying on yourself as the ultimate authority for discerning truth, why do you think you can trust yourself? If it is another person or a collection of people, why do you turn to them? What makes you or others smart enough, discerning enough, or wise enough to depend upon for knowing truth?

  Whether you realize it or not, choosing your authority on truth is the single biggest decision you will ever make. Choose wisely—your life hangs in the balance.

  19

  THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD AND THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU

  Christian truth, then is redemption truth because it requires not simply

  knowledge about something, but knowledge of someone. It is personal.

  —Harold Cooke Phillips


  I have a friend named Gary who likes to tell me about his men’s Bible study group that meets for breakfast on Wednesday mornings. On any given Wednesday, five to eight guys meet with Gary to discuss how God and the teachings of the Bible relate to their personal lives.

  One Wednesday, Gary began the study with a question that was both simple and profound: Who is God?

  The answers were fascinating.

  “I think of God as a good guy,” Art answered. “He does anything He can to help us, bails us out of trouble when we mess up, makes everything right.”

  “No, I see God very differently,” Jack chimed in. “God is very just. He wants me to live a pure life.” Then he added, “And if I don’t live up to that standard, He’ll punish me!”

  “I don’t think of God that way,” Bart confessed. “I really see Him as more of an old-fashioned, uncool kind of grandpa. Don’t get me wrong, I believe He really loves me, but He’s just a little behind the times.”

  Frank was next to speak. “I hate to admit this, but I’ve never viewed God as the kind and gentle type.” He paused and stated in a whisper, “Actually, I see God as more of a mean old man whose only purpose is to keep me from having any fun in life.”

  Everyone had offered an opinion except Dave. Gary prompted him, “Dave, what’s your view on God?”

  Dave sat in silence for another few seconds and then confessed, “God is real . . . I know that . . . but He feels very far away from me right now. Sometimes I feel as if He just doesn’t care about what we are doing or what is going on in our everyday lives. I wish He were closer.”

  As Gary retold the story to me, he made an astute observation: “Each one of the guys had a certain degree of distorted thinking in his view of God that was negatively impacting his life.”

  I agreed with Gary. Each man in his Bible study seemed to think about God in a way that missed who He really is. According to those in Gary’s group, God rescues people from their problems, loves to punish, is out of touch with the modern world, likes to be a party pooper, and is aloof.

  What was true about Gary’s Bible study group is also true about all of us. We all have some distorted perceptions of God. Thus, we don’t know who God really is. J. I. Packer, in his classic book Knowing God, makes clear the cost of not knowing God:

  The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.1

  I believe that knowing God is central to mental and spiritual health. And knowing who God is, is central to knowing who we are. In this chapter, I want to address both issues. First, who is God? What is He really like? Second, who are we? What are we really like? Knowing who God is and who we are is nonnegotiable if we want to live an abundant life. So, let’s put aside our biases, prejudices, stereotypes, and blind spots and see the truth about God and ourselves.

  The Truth About God

  We live in a world where there is a heightened interest in God. However, a popular belief is that God can be anything you want Him to be. Talk to fifty different people about God, and you will probably get fifty different descriptions of who He is. In the marketplace of views about God, you can choose from among a seemingly infinite number of versions.

  We need the real God to stand up and be recognized, and He has. God stood up when He made the world and everything in it. God stood up for people to see when He chose the Jews as His people and did miraculous things for them and through them. God stood up in the human form of Christ when He came to earth to die for people’s sins. God stands up today through changed lives. Throughout it all, God inspired people to write about Him. Those writings are collected for us in the Bible and are available for our study.

  We can have a picture of God relatively free from distortion if we want one. By relying on what God says about Himself in the Bible, we can know, however incompletely, who He really is. Understanding the attributes of God can be a tremendous source of comfort as we face problems. God is an awesome God. Let’s look at some of His attributes, each of which warrants a whole book by itself.

  God Is Self-Existent

  Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that God has no beginning? He wasn’t created—He has always existed. This prayer of Moses was recorded in the book of Psalms:

  Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.2

  John began his Gospel account by emphasizing that Jesus (the Word) was with God and was God from the beginning. He wrote,

  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.3

  We are God’s creation, but nothing created Him. God has always existed, “from everlasting to everlasting.” He had no beginning, and He will have no end.

  God Is All-Powerful

  God can do anything He wants to do. When the Bible refers to God as “Almighty,” it isn’t kidding around or being loose with words—He is all mighty. Theologians refer to this as His omnipotence. Job, after his time of struggle with God, came to this conclusion about God: “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”4

  If God wants to do something, He can do it. If He wants to turn water into wine, raise the dead, or move mountains, it is within His power to do so.

  God Is Everywhere at Once

  Have you ever felt that God was too busy for you? Sometimes we conjure up the mental picture of a long line of people, each waiting his turn to have a moment to speak with God, and God being able to give His attention to only one at a time while having to put the rest of the universe on hold.

  But that’s not the way it is. God is everywhere at once, and all of Him is there. Theologians call that His omnipresence. You don’t have to wait for Him to finish with someone else before He can turn His attention to you. David wrote,

  Where can I go from Your Spirit?

  Or where can I flee from Your presence?

  If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

  If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

  If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.5

  God has time for you. He fills up the whole universe and can be found anytime, anyplace.

  God Is All-Knowing

  God knows everything there is to know. Unlike us finite human beings who know but an infinitesimally small percentage of what can be known, God knows all 100 percent. Nothing that can be known has escaped Him. The psalmist acknowledged this in Psalm 147:5 (NKJV), saying, “Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.”

  God knows so much more than we do, it isn’t even fair to compare. The apostle Paul spoke of God’s wisdom in this way:

  Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

  How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

  “For who has known the mind of the LORD?

  Or who has become His counselor?”

  “Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?”

  For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.6

  Isn’t it comforting to know that the God of the universe isn’t ever going to be surprised by some new piece of information? God can’t be beaten in a debate because He knows all facts. It is stupid to argue with God because He is a couple of zillion times smarter than we are.

  God Is Holy

  God is holy in two sens
es of the word. First, there is no one like God. He is unique, one of a kind. Second, God is perfectly perfect. There are no impurities in Him.

  No one is holy like the LORD, For there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God.7

  God is distinct from anything else, completely pure and righteous. He does only what is right. There is no one else like Him and no one who does right all the time as He does.

  God Is Good

  This attribute is one of my favorites because of its sheer simplicity. Among all the glowing terms used to describe God’s character, it’s nice to know He is just plain good.

  Good and upright is the LORD;

  Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.8

  Everything God does is good. There is not a mean “bone” in God’s makeup. He is always about the business of doing things that are for our good. I find that incredibly encouraging. Also, God can take anything that happens to us and ultimately bring good out of it. Remember Romans 8:28? “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”(NIV)

  Isn’t it comforting to know that in a world where people are sometimes out to harm you, God is always out to do you good?

  God Is Just

  If you’re like me, you feel bothered when you see people get away with doing wrong. We want to see people “get their due” (except for ourselves, of course!). Well, another attribute of God that ought to comfort us (and scare us as well) is that He is just. When He metes out punishment, it is warranted and proportional to the wrong action: “Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”9

  God punishes the guilty and rewards the righteous. People may get away with things here on earth, but there will be ultimate justice where all people will get their due someday.

  God Is Merciful

  God is also merciful. The justice of God means that He never punishes people who don’t deserve it or gives people more punishment than they deserve. The mercy of God means that He sometimes gives less punishment to wrongdoers than they deserve and more reward to “right doers” than they deserve. Paul wrote of this truth in Romans: