God is not capable of lying

What a bizarre statement from a human perspective. I lie, you lie and we all do so why assume that God would be any different. There is a core issue that we are facing here as we look at the topic of God’s total truthfulness. The issue is that God is everything that we are not. He is pure, He is perfect, He always acts within his character and He is unique compared to you and me. One of those strands of His outstanding character is His total truthfulness.

It is often helpful to compare translations of the Bible to understand a text. Modern versions translate Tit.1.2 as ‘God does not lie’. Older versions usually say he ‘cannot lie’. Which is correct you might be asking? Strong’s Concordance’ says that the word for lie has a negative particle in front of it to indicate that God is not capable of lying. Robertson’s Word Pictures says that the statement really means that God is the ‘non lying God’. God is not in the business of lying, it is out of character for Him and he just does not do it.

What does this mean for me? It means that I can trust everything God has ever said. It means that every time I pick up my bible to read or a verse comes into my mind that I can say to my self – this is the truth, I can rest on this! Image the effect that this has on my Bible reading.

If the truth of this really grips you it will strengthen your faith in God. It will make you more obedient. It will build your confidence. It will fix your eyes on heavenly things and not on the earth.

You’ll have a good day after thinking this one through.

Something that God cannot do!

If you were debating morals and ethics with your peer group and someone said ‘I have never done anything wrong’ you might be quite surprised and I am sure a discussion would develop. Morality and ethics are complex issues from any angle but especially when we approach it from a subjective point of view. We all have our opinions and are influenced by our ‘worldview’.

As a Christian I realise that my world view is often incomplete and inaccurate. Hopefully not because I am stupid but because without the word of God I do not have access to all of the information that I need to understand the world, past present and future.

In the Bible God has communicated to us about things that we could not know about from any other source. One amazing revelation God gives us about himself is His inability to sin. The word of God says that God has a flawless character.

This means that God is right in every respect. This covers how he acts, why he acts, matters of motive, intention etc. He is eternally without defect.  This is difficult for flawed human beings to grasp but it is true. Even when we are doing good things and behaving well a sense of pride and superiority can creep into our thinking. Even in His perfection God is uniquely majestic and noble and yet without conceit.

We naturally find that we react and respond when tempted by sin. There is nothing in the character of God that responds to temptation. Like wood shavings set beside a magnet there is no pull towards evil.

It is God’s desire that we replicate His holy character in the way that we live. Give God a chance to make you like him. Spend some time with Him today.

Alone - Mark 14:50

Mar 14:50 And they all forsook him, and fled.

 Do you ever feel you’ve been deserted? The Lord can sympathise as He knows more than any other person what it is to be alone.

 In our passage today we see that Mark has recorded for us this fact that all forsook Him and fled. Another translation says ‘everyone deserted Him and fled’ (NIV). He was left alone with those who had come to arrest Him, this despite all that Peter had said earlier.

The Lord knew what it was to be left alone in the hour of His deepest need. He was to face the barrage of abuse with no man standing by to support and help. During those 3 hours of darkness on the cross he was forsaken by God as He was made sin for us. Psalms 102 tells us that He was like a pelican of the wilderness: like an owl of the desert and a sparrow alone upon the house top, pictures illustrating His loneliness. No one has been lonelier.

It was His obedience to His Father that led Him to this lonely place. Sometimes you will find the same happening to you. Friends and colleagues want to do things and go to places that as a Christian you feel are not for you. That decision may come with a cost: being alone.

I remember from my college days that there were many lunch times that I spent alone in the library because class colleagues had gone drinking. At times I found this hard and embarrassing as we don’t naturally like to be the odd one out and left alone.

We can take comfort that when these situations arise the Lord has been there first. He knows what it is to be alone and so can sympathise with how we feel at times like these.