This Truth

1 Corinthians 13:6
Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

 

I’ve been trying to write about this verse for a few weeks now, but every time I start I get a few sentences in and then it starts to feel forced or shallow, and when writing about truth shallow is just well, false. So attempt number… don’t even ask and the question remains, what is truth?

 

I read something today, an analysis of a certain psalm, number 29 to be exact and the point that this writer made, the truth that any number of Christians overlook on a daily basis, the truth that’s hard to swallow but easy to forget, and it says GOD IS HOLY, but what is this truth and what does it really mean? You see, we sing these words in songs, and use them in our prayers, but how often do we fully taste their bittersweet truth.

 

I hope you’re still reading this, and I’m not really trying to go all gloom and doom on you, but truth isn’t always pretty, in fact, most of the time its messy, it’s the stuff that brings you down a notch when you feel you’ re on the top of the world and messes with your head when you think you’ve got things figured out, truth is the last thing you want to hear when you think you’re right and the hardest thing to take when you find you were wrong.

 

But love, why does love rejoice in the truth then? And that brings me back to this one, this truth of the God I call mine, and that’s the flaw, He belongs to no man, for He is Holy. The Old Testament, the first 39 books of the bible, the ones we often skip over or tell new Christians not to start with, the Old Testament is filled with this truth. Story after story of the Glory of God, story after story of His power, His strength, His judgment, wrath and His most wonderful Holiness; Moses shone with the glory of His presence, Isaiah feared death at the sight of His throne, Saul lost his kingdom for disregard of His Word, and over and over people died for entering into His presence without respect of His Holiness.

 

So where dose that leave us and, what about the New Testament; the stories we love to read, stuff of miracles, healings, grace, peace, hope, love, Jesus? What about all that, that’s truth too, right? And its newer, that must be the God I serve, right? The pretty One who forgives and blesses, I serve Jesus; the one who heals and delivers, Old Testament… wrath, judgment, that was before Jesus, it must be different now, Right?

 

But God is still Holy. And that is why we need Jesus to save us, the question; that big one, why did Jesus have to die? Because God is Holy.

 

“but we forget, with little difficulty, that it was God’s justice,the
necessity of holiness, that brought death to give life. It is His holiness that
required the shedding of blood, the losing of life, to be the only way to make things right. It was the turning of His back that darkened the
sky as our Christ breathed finality.

-David Crowder
Praise Habit

 

God is Holy, He can not look on sin, His holiness dose not allow it, and that is why Jesus had to die, His blood; the price for our sin and the soap that washes sin off, so that our Holy Father can look at us, this is the truth, the stuff that love rejoices in, its messy and beautiful, sad and joyous, it’s the definition of bittersweet, God is so Good that death is the price to draw near to Him, love rejoices in the truth.