“Truth? You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessep in “A Few Good Men”.

Oxford dictionary defines truth as the quality or state of being true. Truth is relative to what is true. True is defined as ”in accordance with fact or reality”. A fact is a thing that is known or proved to be true.

Facts are subjective if all it takes is to convince a mind of what is acceptable knowledge. That requires a reasonable rational mind that can accept evidence and process it correctly.

The world will tell you that there are no absolute truths. They will argue any and every point in which they have a vested interest.

We who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have been given the Helper, the Holy spirit, the Third Person of God, the Spirit of Truth. We live by faith not by sight, so what is the truth in this new Kingdom where Jesus rules as our Sovereign?

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The Spirit of Truth tells us only those truths we can handle or need to know. Withholding the truth is not a lie. The goal of this Kingdom is a loving relationship with God the Father and He will never do or say anything to weaken that relationship. He wants us to be closer so that we will trust and obey in order to share His love for us with those that have not yet experienced His love.

When I was a child my cat developed stomach cancer. My mother told me they had to put him to sleep. Tiger always slept with me. If he was asleep, why wasn’t he in my bed like always? The concept of life and death was not something my mother felt that I was able to handle. A few years later her father died. She told me he died but I was not allowed to go to his funeral. She did not want me to see his lifeless corpse. She did not want that for me.

In much the same way our loving Father knows what is best for our relationship and does not reveal a truth that is harmful to our relationship.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Mishandling truth has been part of my journey and only maturity helps to recognize how to handle truth. I will know the truth when I can handle that truth. 

James 4:4

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

The solution to the problem is so simple.

Surrender.

A doctor of theology I have heard many times said that man likes to make it complicated.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 English Standard Version

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Rephasing the good doctor, “Your intellect won’t save you.”

The only way to end this enmity is to surrender.

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

That haughty attitude trips us up. We like to be right. Who wants to be wrong?

Here is the only way to be right.

Romans 10:3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

Philippians 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

Be right with God. Righteousness is a right standing before God and we cannot do that apart from Christ. Surrender to our Savior. It is just that simple.