Test Your Foundation

Something that's been seen, moment to moment--glimpsed time to time, from the side and even fully acknowledged...

...has made all the more apparent absolute need for seeking God, Himself, without so much regard for form or fashion except to want Him, in truth. In Himself, He is distinctly perfect and holy--completely sovereign and set wholly apart and above all of His creation, while still...being the means by which it continues to exist, being that in which it subsists.

Put another way...

If you really want to know the truth of something, there's no choice but to go to the source.

Think along lines of the "telephone game," in terms of what happens to information that's been passed from one hand to the next--even with full intention of relaying a very specific message, being quite intentional with attempted precision in enunciation...still, something is always lost in translation.

Something is always slightly altered, even if only in terms of the way a thing is perceived, as flavored by the perspective of the beholder.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, is what's also important to note...merely, communication is as subjective as is individual existence. There may be vast similarities and near-total overlaps in means and methods and manners of understanding and practicing matters which seem utterly straightforward to such as share a similar perspective...whereas for those with a differing perspective, while the same truth is wholly applicable, the manner in which it might come into fruition as realized in each own life will be by a different course.

Truth, itself, is the same. In essence. And especially of certain particulars--the further near to absolute you arrive, the less room for variableness in interpretation and application without having altered the truth in such a way as perverts it.

God is God, for instance--as the source of all truth and of all reality, He is the ultimate of all truths and beings. None are superior, and His vastness is incomprehensible, even as the sheer fact of His being is inalterable, regardless that some might reject or attempt to alter this truth. The truth of who He is can't be impacted nor altered by a deviation from an accurate knowledge of Him--merely the deviant interpretations only compound unto further and further deviations from truth within the minds of those who ever find means and rationale as to justify and "recover" the dissonance, internal, created by believing a lie.

As one lie is chosen as palatable, then each which compounds as further deviation from truth becomes more readily digested...until appetite for truth is wholly ruined and only falsehoods are even nearly digestible, even as to maintain the flow and consistency of such stringent error as must be held in a very strained balance as to be retained.

One upon another, lie upon lie, each to support the last, just as each flows more readily unto a next. It requires self-deception just as to believe a lie, in other words. Whereas believing truth requires only acceptance, as truth can be endlessly worried and incessantly troubled without fading one iota nor growing ever a shade more pale.

What is true will remain true, no matter what rigors of honestly endeavored dissection are forcibly endured. Rather, truth only stands more apparent as true, given ardent and unceasing devotion to poking and prodding at any seeming uncertainty or seeming inconsistency--not allowing such as might seem to indicate a point of weakness to stand, but requiring it prove itself as either solid or faulty.

And, again, put another way--if a foundation is truly, wholly solid...no matter what you throw at it, nor how much you beat against it, nor what manner of madness you attempt to corroborate it with...if you sincerely and honestly asses the damage done, sincerely and honestly go about "proving" the matter (testing and testing and testing again)...

...if it is sound, it will remain.

Even if anything built upon it may have seeming inconsistencies, then the foundation remains secure. And whatever is inconsistent will come down, too, upon such rigorous ballasting as otherwise is required to test such a foundation's strength.

So, each to seek God, then. Trusting He will do as He has said, for those who do seek. That's the only hope, in terms of salvation. Christ is God incarnate, and this is also an utmost fundamental truth which must be acknowledged, in terms of knowing and seeking God. And of that fundamental, there is the fact of those essentials which He asserted as utterly required as to have true knowledge of God, which IS life...

...He took our sins upon Himself, at the crucifixion.

He preached a message of repentance, that all must repent of wickedness and turn to God, even to Him, for forgiveness...

...or otherwise, to be eternally outcast and suffering, according to the state of our hearts' miseries and malice against a sovereign, omnipotent Creator.

God is the ultimate truth, and those things which He said are utterly vital are what needs must be done. Repentance through Christ. Unto salvation.

And the manifestation of each our salvation, we're told we each have to work out, drawing nearer to God and having to rely ever more fully upon Him for direct revelation as direction even given through Scripture, or as always accordant with Scripture, at the very least.

There's no discord in God. But a unity in diversity. Total unity, though.

To what extent do we each manifest this aspect of who and how He is, within ourselves, without our society, within and without even our congregations?