Day 130: Trading Truths for Lies

Romans 1:16-32; 1 Samuel 9:1-10:16; Psalm 55

The message of the Lord's salvation is the most powerful and important thing in all of the earth!  Believe that with all your heart!  Those that don't:  They traded the truth of God for a lie, and worship things in the earth rather than Him who made the earth.  When it is put like that, it is so sad--they traded truth for a lie, a LIE. People all over the world and right in our own neighborhoods are living their lives in search of or believing lies:  lies about creation, lies about themselves, lies about how life works.  People will live and die for these lies, even when the truth of God is all around them.  As a follower of Christ, when I read this, I feel hurried, like because these people are dying without believing the truth, I need to get up and do something!  However, I recognize that some of these people do know of God's truth, and yet, they will still be so in love with their lies, that they will refuse to accept truth and life.  That is the truth of freedom and probably the disappointment that God lives with everyday.

A few verses later it talks about the way in which many people have gone:  homosexuality.  Yep, I'm gonna talk about it. (It's one of those hot topics today, though I won't spend much time on it ever, since I care more about saving the lives of babies in the womb and rescuing young women from sex trafficking.) But here's scripture's and my take on homosexuality:  Sometimes we think that this concept and lifestyle is a terrible problem of the 20th/21st century--nope.  But what stands out to me is the part of the verse that says, "what has happened to them is punishment for their foolish deeds." So, what has happened to them?  I was reading an article by a transgender person and they were talking about how they just want acceptance, and how transgender people (and I think they included homosexuals too) had the highest rate of depression and suicide.  This individiual believed that it was because they aren't being accepted by people.  I believe it is something else entirely.  These people are believing a lie, pursuing that lie, hoping it will fill the hole in their hearts, discover it can't, feel more hopeless than when they started, so they end their life.  It isn't because they aren't accepted--all of us deal with rejection.  It is because they believe a lie about themselves and when they can't fill the emptiness with their sexual identity (because that emptiness can only be filled by Jesus), they sink deep into depression.  Now, I don't claim to be an expert on any of this, but I believe that this might be what this scripture is talking about.

The following verses, 28-32 talk about all the terrible and evil things these people who have traded truth for a lie do--again, not just a 21st century problem.  This just means that as believers, we must be different:  no gossiping, no cheating, no greed, no boasting.  We must have love and compassion.

God loves to do this:  he works with the smallest, least important, most unexpected people and allows them to do great things.  Saul, the first king of Israel, came from the smallest, least important tribe, and he was on an errand to catch donkeys when Samuel made him king.  That would be like me, going to get groceries, and I become president instead.  I wouldn't want that job, but how crazy is that!  We don't have to have a high position or great power to do something great.  God is the greatness we need, we just have to be the carrier of that.