Transcription from New Orleans Services

7-09-10

Tonight we’re going to talk about truth for a Christian. People tell me, "I really want truth—I love truth." You share the truth with them, and then you get a two-page letter to show you how they are, effectively justifying everything you sought to help them correct. All of which, if they embraced the truth you gave them, would have corrected. Now, how does a person love truth when they respond to it like that? To be a seeker of truth means you have to hate yourself with godly hatred in the light of truth. Meaning; you have to despise your lower nature at the cross of truth. Whenever confronted with truth, if it is the opposite of what you’re doing, you must learn to hate your sinful self for the sake of having truth. Truth convicts, and it is able to convict.

The reason truth cannot convict the average Christian is because they love themselves so much. So many Christians think: oh, I’ve got such low self-esteem or oh, I do not like myself. In all honesty, these issues do not reflect the truth as God sees it. Or they do have some self-esteem, or maybe what I should say, is what some of those in the body have; is PRIDE. Pride creates a barrier in front of the heart. Because of pride, when confronted with truth, they may unknowingly choose self and their own way over truth. Then, they get their feelings hurt, they resent and even grow bitter because truth tried to make an entrance into the heart. Hence, there cannot be a conviction of the heart, and you cannot be brought to repentance because truth cannot pierce through the barrier of pride. A healthy, godly perspective is necessary.

Remember when the rich man came to Jesus, and he said: good teacher, good master! And what did Jesus say? There is none good but the Father. When we think we are good what must we do? First, we stand in shock that we just did that; stand in awe or fear; repent and remember that if the Lord Himself said, “There is none good but the Father,” why are we saying it? And what do we have to be prideful over, if the only One that’s good is the Lord?

You see, I know this is not what most ministers teach, but I’m trying to give you truth. What does the Bible say? In our flesh dwells no good thing. Does that mean 'not many good things' or how about 'a few good things'? It means precisely what it says. In our flesh dwells no good thing. So what are we trying to protect; our tent of no good things?

The Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things. So if this is true then why do we want everyone to think we are so good-hearted? See, I’m just trying to teach you to love truth more than yourself. When you remember those two things, then truth can take its rightful place, and when you love truth more than you love you, you will start looking like Jesus. It’s the dichotomy of the faith—you die, He lives. You decrease, He increases. Or we could say it like this; you die, you live. You decrease, you increase, but you grow in Godliness and holiness, in righteousness, in the strength, beauty, and nobility of the Lord; all of these characteristics to which we should aspire. These things glorify you.

I love that Peter said that our glory is like the fading grass. How many of you went out on a summer’s day and looked at the grass and said, “What glory! What a marvelous glory, see the way it shines in the sun! What glorious grass, and in my front yard!”? Our glory is like the fading grass. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that this fading grass is translucent and shimmering with this amazing glory. He is trying to bring us down to reality. Can you bear that? Walking in our glory isn’t the secret. The secret is to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord. To humble ourselves in the sight of man; to humble ourselves that we can find ourselves worthy of bearing His glory, that is the goal—truth.

...and the Word, Christ, became flesh. Human, incarnate and a tabernacle that has fixed His tent of flesh and lived a while among us and we saw Him glory. We saw His glory, His honor, His majesty, which glory as an only begotten receives from His Father full of grace, favor, loving-kindness, and truth.

Jesus is full of truth. I can remember the day He visited me and let me experience in my soul, what this scripture means. First, He let me see it in Him. I saw He was wholly truth—truth incarnate. Truth was in constant movement in Him. He was the living truth, the living Word. I didn’t look into His mind to see that He had memorized Scripture—He was truth, living truth and that truth had everlasting life flowing from it. Then, He let me feel what it feels like to become truth, where lies are dispelled. There is no longer darkness in you, but you have become truth. You say: well I have never heard of a Christian becoming truth. I am so glad you are participating in this study my friends because that is what you are called to do.


We are first called to love truth and love it so much we will be willing to die for it. Then, you’re called to become truth where your life is so intertwined, meshed and overtaken by truth that the deception is gone. There is no longer deception guiding your feet. How do you become truth? We will discuss that later. For now, we look at the Son full of grace and truth. That means that nothing He says is a lie. He is never going to deceive you. There is no shadow in His turning. If He says something—He means it. Have you ever had a friend that would say something they didn’t really mean and you would find out later that they didn’t mean what they said? When you hear them talking and relating to other people as well, and it seems that they rarely say what they mean? Or have you had friends that prefer you to read between the lines? I have, and I find that I am a terrible friend to people like that because I don’t have the capacity to read between the lines. If you speak to me between the lines, I am standing there just looking at you believing everything exactly as you’re telling me. So if you are speaking in little-hidden messages- I won’t even realize it.

I once shared with one of our leaders during a Gathering that some of the people in our hotel had been misbehaving, and I was feeling extremely embarrassed not knowing what to say to the hotel except I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Since this individual is so diplomatic, I asked if they could they please diplomatically explain to the attendees that they have got to stop? So he agreed. When we came back from lunch, he got up on the platform and talked to the people. He came and sat down after he finished and I said, “You forgot to correct them.” He said, “No I did.” I said, “You told them to quit misbehaving diplomatically? I don’t think they got it.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Because I didn’t.” Do you know what? They did get it. They went back to the hotel and started behaving themselves. Later when I found out, I said, “How did you do that? You never mentioned anything.” He said, “Because they read between the lines.” And that is my problem, I can’t do it—I don’t know how and have never figured it out.

What I discovered, with the Lord; He never speaks between the lines. He tells you just like it is even if it’s not what you want to hear. People can tell you one thing with their mouth, and there is something else hidden in their heart and sometimes it can be very serious, so the Lord just lets me hear their heart speak so that I know what their heart is saying, and then I can read between the lines. I’m hearing what He’s hearing. But the reason He lets me do that is because I don’t judge people. I don’t criticize them when I know that they cannot say what they truly mean even if it is bad; I don’t judge them. Since I don’t judge them, He lets me know the truth. What you want in this life is truth. Truth is what will heal you.

To be continued

In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson