1.5 Minute Read

In the movie A Few Good Men, Colonel Jessep (Jack Nicholson) responds to Lieutenant Kaffee’s questioning saying, “You can’t handle the truth!”

We’ve all heard that quote before. And while we may want to feel the indignation and righteousness that Lieutenant Kaffee does, I believe we stop short of the truth in our own lives.

In Psalm 4:2 David describes the upside-down nature of men like this: “How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?”

More often than we think, we don’t want the truth. We are not as keen to be the hero as we think. We stop short and suppress what is real. Our God-given conscious tells us what Paul said in Romans 1:25. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” How is the depraved nature of your heart exchanging God’s truth for a lie?

We think that if the truth were to seep into the fiber of our being, it would be too much for us to handle. Entering the promised land means leaving what is currently in your hand. The truth will cost us everything.

In Miracles, C. S. Lewis describes the point at which we find truth in the Christian faith as a dynamic shift in our lives.  

“An ‘impersonal God’– well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads — better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap–best of all. But God Himself, alive pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband — that is quite another matter.” – from Miracles

Many people say they are seeking the truth, but who’s truth? Isn’t much of it moralistic therapeutic deism?

I had a conversation with a young entrepreneur today. After asking me about my studies and goals, I returned the question. He said, “At the end of the day you can’t take money with you to heaven, but you can take your friends.”

That saddened me. This man went to a private Christian high school in St. Louis. He spoke highly of his religious teachers. I replied to him saying, “I suppose that depends on what sort of heaven you are talking about. Doesn’t it?”

Friends, the sort of truth we discuss is of grave significance. We do not have a quasi-pseudo relativistic truth as Christians. We have one that says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Special thanks to Katy Chapell for creative editing.