Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

Believe the Evidence~ Recently we have heard people say, "I believe her", or "I believe him", which is the traditional 'he said, she said' senario that has plagued these recent events in the United States Senate. We have heard some women say that anyone, especially men, that do not believe whatever a woman say about having been sexually accosted is morally bankrupt, leaving men open to slander and false accusations, without a defense. We even see this kind of sentiment in the religious community when people accuse fellow believers of not being saved because they either do or don't believe something that the accuser believes to be correct doctrine. Example: if a church has a 'prophet', and another person in that church declares that they don't believe that person was a prophet, they are excoriated for not being a 'true believer'. Let me make my position perfectly clear; I don't believe 'him', I don't believe 'her', I BELIEVE THE EVIDENCE! But in every case, whether civil or spiritual, there is two kinds of evidence; the true, and the false. Those that believe false evidence as if it is the truth do so primarily by FAITH. The definition of faith as defined by Rick Sterling is this; "Faith allows a person to believe a lie as if it is the truth, without accountability". Most of the time these people simply believe what they have been taught from childhood, without considering the source. Others believe by faith out of convenience, or a sense of needing to belong to a select group of people. Yet God does not ask any of us to believe by faith, He asks us to believe by the evidence of His words, that He sent to earth via His only Son, Jesus, that He gave to His own eyewitness disciples (and ONLY those disciples). This is all the evidence we need to find eternal life

Join Spirit of Truth Ministry for our Flag Ship program, The Bible On Trial. This program tests the words of Jesus that He gave to His own eyewitness disciples against the words of those that claim to have been sent by God. This will challenge your thinking on how truth is found and applied in our lives.

Liar, Liar . . . Can you recognize a liar when you see or hear one? Sometimes it is difficult to equate what you see with what you hear. With an accomplished liar the words seem so smooth and comforting, and the look so confident and honest, that you get sucked into the looking glass and don't even know it.  One way of understanding what you are experiencing is to look at the body language of the speaker, and watch for the 'tells' of a liar. There is a sub-specialty in psychology where the practitioner can tell by observing the mannerisms of the person speaking whether they are lying or telling the truth. Do they swallow too much, or are their blink patterns normal, or too fast of slow. Do they tuck their chin in when they lie to appear smaller and less conspicuous, or do they lift their chin in defiance, saying 'I dare you to challenge what I say'. Do their eyes move to memory points, where they are seeing in their mind what they are saying with their mouth, or do their eyes stay neutral as they think about a lie that they have memorized and practiced. Telling whether someone is lying is really not all that difficult if you know what to look for. What IS difficult is trying to tell if someone is lying by reading what a person has written, or what has been written about what a person has said. This requires much more skill, because you don't have physical cues to watch while a person is speaking. In order to find out whether a person is telling the truth or lying about what they have written there must be some other standard by which you can compare those expressed ideas and concepts other than their own words.  For spiritual truth it is the understanding of Spirit of Truth Ministry that it is the words of Jesus that He gave to His own eyewitness disciples that are the standard by which all ideas about spiritual truth must be compared. You can't do better than this!

Never in the history of the world is it more importat to know the differences between those that love the truth, and those that love lies they believe to be true than right now. We have just seen this drmatically play out in the Senate of the United States where one side has with malace of forethought attempted to destroy an honorable man in favor of a political position. And whatever your political leanings the idea that one side should do anything and everything to ruin the other side  shows just how far Satan will go to promote and carry out his plans for the world. And 'You ain't seen nothin' yet"!  It is our job to not only be able to tell the difference between lies and the truth, but we must also be able to show others how to do this in a way that is understandable and effective. It is our position at Spirit of Truth Ministry that the best and only way to do this is to use the very words that Jesus used to do the same thing under the same conditions when He was here on earth. Jesus faced character assasination. He was lied about and maligned. And finally He was denigrated, tortured, and hung on a cross for teaching Truth to a political system that wanted nothing to do with truth. Prepare for war!

My daughter and her husband are moving house. They are moving from a one bedroom apartment into a two bedroom single family dwelling. They have actually been moving for several days, a little at a time, but they are making a push this weekend to get the big things moved pretty much in 'one fell swoop'. And yet even with friends with young backs (and dear old dad and mom) helping, it is hard work moving an entire household, because there is just so much stuff. Fairly soon those of us that love the truth will be 'moving house' as well, but this time it will not be into another earth bound home, it will be into a brand new 'heavenly home'. If you think moving an earthly household into new digs is tough, just imagine how much more difficult it is going to be to move from an earthly home in an earthly kingdom into a heavenly home into a heavenly Kingdom. Oh, I can just hear people say, 'but I won't have to take anything with me; all my earthly possessions will be gone and burned up in the 'Lake of Fire', and I will be able to get all new 'stuff' when I get to my 'mansion in the sky'. Yet I am not speaking of earthly things, I am speaking of spiritual things. The most difficult thing about changing residences from here to there is the fact that we must FIRST unpack ALL of our old spiritual clothes that were given to us by "Grace through Faith", and get rid of them, and put on "Fine linen, clean and bright. And the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." (Rev.19:8). The difficulty arises from realizing that these robes are cleaned by RIGHTEOUS ACTS.  "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:21). Understand that the ONLY thing we will take with us to Heaven is a RIGHTEOUS character, that was developed here on earth by doing the truth.

Running Out~        When I was in collage many years ago my uncle came on campus as an instructor/associate professor, so I just had to take one of his classes, just to be able to say years later that Uncle Paul was my professor. He taught symantics, and I needed an upper level English class, so it was a perfect fit. It was a real eyeopener in two regards; I didn't know that he was a brilliant teacher (to me he was just 'Uncle Paul'), and his class literally set me on the road to my absolute love of the English language, especially word association through alternate definitions, i.e., puns. The very first homework assignment Uncle Paul gave was to find every common use definition of a word, and he assigned the words to the class. My word was 'run'. Now remember, this is LONG before the internet and Siri. In order to find a definition of a word you had to go to the campus library and actually do RESEARCH. At our next class I thought I had the assignment nailed; I had found 25-30 definition for the word 'run'. And just as with everyone in the class I was soon disabused of that notion. When it was my turn I stated my case, and geve examples, at which point Uncle Paul told the class (and me) that there are over 200 common usages of the word 'run', and that I had not gotten close to that total. I was stunned. When we 'run out' of something it means that we no longer have it, and need to go get it, so we 'run' to the store, or 'run over' to a friends house, or 'run to town'. On thing is certain, we will never 'run out' of Truth. Running out of Truth is an oxymoron (an apparent contradiction of terms). To find the Truth takes a lot of dedicated research in multiples of disciplines. To practice the truth we must first KNOW the truth. Then the truth will finally set us free from believing lies.

The Process of Sanctification~ "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." John 3:21. Modern Christianity teaches that you learn to practice the truth AFTER you come to the light, and that light is Christ Jesus. It also teaches that the 'practice' of truth is simply declaring that you love Jesus, and accept the blood of His sacrifice on your behalf; in other words when you accept Jesus as your personal savior, His grace saves you through your faith.  However, the cited verse above would seem to challenge that way of thinking. Jesus also said that in order to hear what He actually says you must already be OF the Truth: Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." John 18:37 (b). Therefore, Jesus teaches that in order to come to the light of righteousness you must first practice (DO) the Truth; and in order to do (practice) the truth you must know it by actually hearing (listening to) what He says. It is no wonder that Christians don't know what Jesus says, and therefore cannot enter this 'process of sanctification', because they are listening to voices, to words, that ARE NOT the words of Jesus. ANYONE that teaches ANYTHING that disagrees in ANY WAY with Jesus taught His own eyewitness disciples IS A LIE, and will not lead you to truth. "Anyone who goes too far (goes beyond) and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son". (2John 9).

False Humility~ One of the most important lessons that we must learn from the life and teaching of Jesus is that (as with Him) we must live, think and believe (by knowledge) in something that is bigger, more important, and OUTSIDE of us. The humility that Jesus exhibited while in mission here on earth stemmed from the fact that He came to do the will of His Father in Heaven. That 'will' was to "testify to the truth" (John 18:37). Jesus said that He was "The Way, the Truth, and the Life". And we can apply this in our own lives by understanding the Jesus shows us the Way, through the Truth, that leads to eternal Life. Jesus told Nicademus; "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." John 3:21. Our deeds that are based upon the truth that Jesus came to teach are not about who we are, but when that truth is inside us we obey the commands, the will, of OUR Father, just as did Jesus, then that proves that what we do is from God. In other words, our deeds done in Truth point people to God, and not to us. Those deeds actually bring us to the Truth (the Light), and that makes us righteous (sanctified). "Sanctify them in the Truth, Your WORD is truth." John 17:17 This concept is counter to the understanding of the gospel taught through Christianity that we can do nothing to actually become righteous in fact, as is Jesus; and that when we try to do 'good' we actually negate the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross; this is false humility. That kind of humility will never bring you to the Kingdom of God.

Practical Righteousness~ "One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word." R.A. Heinlein. I was thinking about the miracles of Jesus, and this quote popped into my head. I love the writing of Heinlein; it was reading his stories when I was in 7th and 8th grade that got me interested, really interested, in science. It also got me interested in deciphering the engineering of 'magic'. For the most part magic is simply the illusion of misdirection; you get the audience to look at one thing while you work the 'magic' in another direction. A magician practices these illusions such that the audience has no idea 'how he did it'. But I do agree with Heinlein that there is science and engineering behind the miracles in Biblical accounts. Much of science (including Heinlein) poo-poos the Creation account in Genesis because it does not fit their ideas as to 'origins of the species'. Yet by ignoring the idea that miracles are based in engineering and science they conveniently ignore that which the do not understand, preferring to put their 'faith' in that which they CAN understand, rather than admit that there are things that they DON'T understand at the moment. So when I think about miracles, I can do this without 'faith', that is, believing that something exists about  which I know nothing. By declaring that I don't understand how something works does not mean that it doesn't work simply because I don't understand how. A child does not need to know HOW electric lights work; all they need to learn is how to 'throw the switch' to make it so. The miracles of Jesus, therefore, prove that God exists in a realm which we now do not understand. When we become righteous 'in fact' we enter the realm where God lives, and understand.

Preserves ~ I just finished making 15-1/2 pints of peach preserves. All 15 of the Ball jars 'clicked', which means that after processing as the jars cool the lid clicks, which indicates that the lid has sealed properly, and the peach jam has indeed been preserved. Now you might think that I am going to use the fact that I followed the recipe and the canning instructions precisely, and that is what led to a successful result; but I am not, because that is a little too obvious. No, I am going to use the word 'click' as a reminder that when something 'clicks' it often means that after we 'process' something in our minds, that the result is that what we were learning 'clicked', and we 'got it', that is, we understand. Rick, and those of us that are studying and researching the truth with him are having to learn some very difficult things in order to come to the truth. More often than not we are having to UNLEARN many things that we THOUGHT were true, but turned out not to be so. Jesus said, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (John 8: 31-32) The other word often used here is ABIDE; "If you abide in my word . . ."  This means to LIVE IN, or reside in the words that Jesus spoke to His own eyewitness disciples. This means that this isn't just a part time job; it is more that just occasionally reading your bibile or going to church. It is a total immurstion into what Jesus said, and comparing that to whatever ANYONE else has said, and this includes writers that appear in the Bible. When you do this Jesus promised that His words would eventually 'click', and we will understand the meaning of what He said, and be saved. So if this seems like an impossible task don't give up, because Jesus keeps His promises.