The Truth's Lying in Plain Sight

         As a precursor, I want to note that I generally strive to avoid political posts and this one is no different. I don't hold to any particular party (just Jesus above all)- and this is not about parties and politics- it's about purity.
         I was thinking earlier today about the truth and how it has so many interesting manipulations, particularly by American presidents in recent memory. President Nixon- "Tricky Dick"- claimed boldly, "I am not a crook." Maybe not, but he was unfortunately a liar. (He was smart enough to resign before he got impeached.) President Clinton- "Slick Willy"- needed clarification on the meaning of the word "is" during his impeachment hearings. (He was eventually acquitted, as there were not enough votes for the perjury and obstruction of justice charges to stick.) Of course, President Bush (I'm not aware of pejorative nicknames for him, though I'm sure people assigned him some) sold the whole Iraq war on what was shown to be a false presumption about the presence of weapons of mass destruction there. Numerous charges of questioned truth claims were leveled at President Obama and I suppose his biggest faux pas would be the whole debacle over the handling of the healthcare bill. President Trump's administration talks about the plethora of "fake news" floating around, but also talks about the existence of "alternative facts". How does that even work?
          In years past, we had President "Honest Abe" Abraham Lincoln and President George Washington, who had the famous story about cutting down cherry trees- "I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree." Of course, I'm sure one could find untruths true of all political leaders and people in general at some point or another. The point here is that we are all sinners and all in need of The Truth. Romans 1:25 says that we exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. That is indeed the problem- we've moved from a picture of grace and nature being held as the ideas guiding our society to non-rationality and rationality being the two guiding ideas- and we escape from reason as the basis for truth to embracing feelings as the basis for truth instead. [Note: I've been reading Francis Schaeffer lately. ;-) I have to credit him for a lot of this post, and ultimately to God for inspiration for both of us.]
As Relient K said, "Sometimes when you're trying to sleep and all your doubts and your faith don't agree, it's cause sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth."
         It's important to note that Jesus identifies Himself not only as The Way and The Life (in John 14:6) but also The Truth. When we come into relationship with Him through faith in His death and Resurrection, we find ourselves in The Truth and come to understand that our identity in Christ is our true selves that the Fall has driven us away from. We live now as shells- men with hollow chests as T.S. Eliot said and C.S. Lewis alluded to as well. Colossians 3:1-4 says that when we come to Christ, we die and our true life is then hidden with Christ in God. His Way of Life really is the only Life- living in line with the design God had for us all along- to be loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Romans 2:9-18 makes it abundantly clear that none of us are righteous- none of us are pure. Yet it's the pure in heart who shall see God, according to Jesus in Matthew 5:8.
        That's exactly why Jesus, the pure and spotless Lamb of God, had to intervene and live out the requirements of the Law that we could never keep. And when we put all our faith into Christ's righteousness and completed work, our falsehoods are recognized for what they are and our eyes are unveiled and we can see the Truth of Jesus for Who He is- and know The Truth who sets us free. (John 8:32-36) "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:1-4)