Anthony Pritchard
Member
On the Cost and Cure of Truth
Veritatem dilexi - I have loved truth.
There are moments in a believer’s life that set the course for everything that follows. For me, one of those moments came in the earliest days after I surrendered to the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was young in the faith, alone with my thoughts, and thrust by circumstance into a life of seeking truth. I prayed then, and I have prayed ever since, that God would lead me into truth and keep me from error. Forty seven years have passed, and that prayer has never left my lips. I remain a truth seeker.
Here is what I have learned, or at least what has proven most important to me..
Truth often carries pain. Some have borne far more than I have. Their commitment to Christ has cost them friendships, family, parents, children, spouses and even their lives. Relationships have been torn because of the truth they embraced. Others have stood at a bedside, weeping, as a loved one who rejected Christ slipped into eternity, knowing what that refusal meant.
Truth that wounds is still truth that heals. As surgery brings pain for a season, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Scripture says, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11).
A lie, however, is a soft bed for those offended by truth. The people said, “Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Isaiah 30:10). Many travel the broad road to destruction on pillows of comforting falsehoods.
Satan is the father of lies. Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). He offers ease, not truth. Comfort, not clarity. Illusion, not life.
As for me, I choose the harder portion. Scripture says of Moses, “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25).
Give me truth, regardless of the pain.
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
Per crucem ad lucem - Through the Cross to the light.
~Tony
© A.K. Pritchard 1979 –
Free to use with proper attribution.