The Truth You Know




I think back to earlier years, back when my children were young. Without realizing it, I pretty much functioned in some form of “Fear Mode” most of the time. I was saved, but I really didn’t understand all the promises of God that were mine as a born again believer. The reason I didn’t know enough to claim all these wonderful promises of God was simple, I didn’t read God’s word on a regular basis, like a student would study their textbooks in order to understand and comprehend the courses they were taking. In fact, I didn’t even know that I was suppose to study the Bible.

I came out of a denomination that would do a reading out of the old and new testaments as part of the service, but I didn’t know that as part of the covenant relationship that I made with The Lord, I needed to be obedient to His Word, keep his commandments and that I was allowed to claim his promises. How could I obey His word, keep his commandments and claim all of His promises if I never read about them and didn’t know what they were?

In the Bible there were incredible promises that were free to me as a believer, that I didn’t know about . . . so for years I struggled in my own human strength trying to take care of everything myself. It just doesn’t work! Instead of living every day, in every situation, in obedience to God’s word, since I didn’t know God’s word, I started to listen to people. The more I listened to people, the harder and more confused everything became. I had become a “people pleaser”. In my early life I had tried to please everyone . . . parents, husband, children, employers, friends and even strangers! In the process I was miserable, felt intimidated most of the time, but worst of all, I found out, that I definitely wasn’t pleasing God and that you can never do enough to please people!

About 15 years ago, I started taking my faith and my walk with the Lord to a new level. I started on a journey that revolutionized my life. I stopped trying to please people! This is not to say that I’m not kind and loving to people, I am, but now my main focus is doing those things that are pleasing to God. As Christians we have no business seeking council from the world or from non-believers, we need to seek council from God’s word and from mentors that are spiritually mature in Christ. In order for me to know what things, behaviors, and attitudes were pleasing to God, I had to become a reader, a student of the Bible.

I did not and I do not read for a designated amount of time, at the same time everyday, because being human, we will hold ourselves high in our own opinion of ourselves when we think we are doing such a great thing, and the next thing you know pride slips in there and instead of reading for knowledge and wisdom, we tend to brag to everyone who will listen to us that we read our Bible for one hour everyday before we go to work, etc, etc.
Sometimes our pride in ourselves gets real inventive and we learn to just slip it into our conversations like . . .“when I got up at four this morning and read my Bible for two
hours, I just felt so blessed.” Please Lord protect us from pride. Don’t let those kind of comments from others discourage you from reading God’s word, for knowledge and for the building up of your faith. Even if you only have a few minutes a day, just start reading a few verses or a small chapter and as your desire to hear more about God’s
word increases you will find the time to read more.

You know, the Bible says if we want wisdom we need to ask God for it and He will give it to us generously. Consider the Bible to be like an owners manual. If we have a car or a piece of equipment that is new to us and we want to know how it works, there is usually an owners manual that we can turn to for information. As our creator God has provided us with a spiritual manual full of information that will help us live full and faithful lives. He has addressed every issue that could possibly come up and all we have to do is just pick it up and read all about it.

It is said that “The truth will set you free,” but actually it’s only “The truth YOU KNOW that will set you free. The more you read God’s word, the more free you become.