Big Whoop

Everyone agrees that truth is important. If you say you disagree with that, you just proved the point. Otherwise you wouldn’t care enough to disagree with anything. Everyone wants to be right, but does everyone want to know the truth?

For instance, nobody wants to be told that they are depraved in their mind, will, and emotions – that they are a murderer and adulterer through their hate and lust. Or that their “good deeds” are actually like a pile of dog poo in God’s eyes because of their self-righteous sin contamination. Or that there is a literal hell to pay for sin. Or that we are hopelessly lost without a Savior. This is the truth. We don’t like it because it is bad news. And honestly, if all there was was bad news, I wouldn’t want to know about it either.

But Christians supposedly believe there is bad news and good news. In fact, there wouldn’t be such good news without the bad news. The good news is that we do have a Savior – Jesus Christ. He went through hell for us. We can’t earn our God’s love or our way to heaven, and we don’t have to. God’s love and forgiveness and home are free gifts. Jesus is grace.

Every Christian says they care about these truths.  But how many of us LOVE these truths? Maybe you don’t love the truth of God very much because you haven’t thought about it very much. Or perhaps your faith has never been put to the test.

I came to a point in my life about 10 years ago where I thought, “Man. I say I believe all these things about God and that I would even die for these beliefs, but my life just doesn’t line up.” I didn’t like church. I didn’t like the Bible. I was just living day to day trying to have as much fun as possible without feeling guilty. I was a hypocrite, and all of us are to some degree – every sin is a hypocritical act for a Christian. But are you okay with it? This realization in my life gave me a hunger and thirst to know God. If He is real, and I say I believe that, then I want to live like it. If not, then why waste my time with it. This led me to reading the Bible and books about the Bible. And this led me to hearing and reading men like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, R.C. Sproul, Mike Horton, and Tim Keller. And these guys crammed Jesus and His grace down my throat. And I needed it. I still need it every day because I am bent in on myself. I can’t even begin to tell you the influence these men and their teaching has had on my life. It was during this time in my life that I experienced the joy of knowing Christ in such a way that it was like I had just been saved. Maybe I had.

What I’m saying is – doctrine is important. It is literally a matter of life and death – heaven and hell. God wrote a book. I think that means something. Read it. Study it. It’s all about Jesus and without Him you know you would be dead. If you want to know the truth, or just don’t really care. Be encouraged. Jesus can change your wanter. He is the Way, THE TRUTH, and the Life. If Jesus really matters to you, then truth matters to you.

This month, christianaudio.com is giving away free downloads of Mark Driscoll’s book, Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions. You can also pre-order a download of his upcoming book, Doctrine, for just $5. You can also download several of this other books on audio for just $5.

I’m really looking forward to Driscoll’s Doctrine book. In this book he goes through the Bible chronologically and gives 13 essentials of Christian doctrine by showing who God is. You can order and read the reviews for the hard copy of Doctrine here at Amazon, or here through The Resurgence website.