The Truth Will Out

Last week I spoke about the heart and proposed that the only way to experience God’s plan for our lives – that is, Abundant Life – is by living from the heart.

As I spent the week thinking about what I’d said something else struck me. As Christians we have a concrete hope in the future: One day everything will be put right, not by our best efforts, but by God – acting once and for all to restore the whole of the universe to the way it’s meant to work. The Bible describes it like this:

“Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

How great will that be!?! None of this nonsense about sitting on a cloud playing the harp! Instead we’ll be experiencing creation the way it was meant to be enjoyed – knowing God fully, knowing each other fully, experiencing life in all it’s abundance – no more suffering, pain, injustice, illness, death, mourning…

This is our hope as Christians. And the good news is that it’s breaking in to our world right now. One day we’ll see it in full… today we can start to increasingly experience it in part.

I think one of the biggest attractions about Christianity is this offer of life, starting here and now and going on forever, always getting better. When I became a Christian at 17 my choice had very little to do with what would happen to me after I died, but was more about what would happen to me tomorrow, next week, that year. It’s really important to be aware of the bigger eternal picture, but not at the expense of our here-and-now life. You only have to read the gospels to see Jesus kept emphasising that the Kingdom of God was at hand, not some distant possibility.

If we live from the heart – that is from our true selves – by being honest and real, I think we’re on the way to discovering the Abundant Life. But if we don’t live from the heart, if we try to be someone that we’re not, then we exclude ourselves from properly receiving Abundant Life. There are loads of reasons we might avoid living from the heart – fear of rejection, insecurity, pride, pressure of other people’s expectations, the list is probably as long as the population of the planet…

It’s a brave decision to live from the heart and in my talk I suggested some signposts that might help us – four areas we need to address if we want to try to become more heart-centred. They were Honesty, Risk, Focus and Motives.

This week, and the reason I’m doing this blog entry, it occurred to me that we’re really living on borrowed time anyway. One day, on the day when the whole order of the cosmos will shift from what we know now to what is described in the Bible-passage above, everything will be made known. We could spend our lives coving up, wearing masks and being false to our true selves, but not only will we be missing out on the Abundant Life, it’s also a totally futile task. Because on that day the masks will be ripped away, everything we’re brushing under the carpet will be revealed and the cupboards will be opened to give our skeletons a good airing!

Since that’s going to happen anyway – and it has to happen to allow us to enter the fantastic new order – we might as well start now. There’s a phrase (which I always thought was in the Bible but actually it’s from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice) which sums this up perfectly: The truth will out.

And it will! In one way or another everything will be revealed, and it’s far better to do it because it’s our choice – a result of humbling ourselves – than because we’ve been exposed.

The Apostle Paul writes: “Judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” I always read this fearfully – how horrible to be found out for every selfish, hateful, lustful, mean-spirited and self-serving thought, motive, word and deed! But really this is mercy. We can’t know God except with our heart – our true selves. God isn’t interested in knowing a mask!

Even when our secrets get revealed and we’re caught out, it’s mercy. Hard to take and embarrassing, sure – but if we take it as a lesson for our heart, it’s a mercy all the same.

I would love us to be people who live from the heart – honest and true to God and each other. What a great church we would be, how attractive and welcoming to outsiders – who all have their own mess to deal with and are often totally turned off by church where everyone’s seemingly perfect.

The truth will out – how much better if we do it ourselves and what a reward! The adventurous journey of discovering the Abundant Life we were created to live.

If you have any comments or stories about this, I’d love to hear. Post a comment below.