I love Luke. Luke begins his gospel by saying I am writing this to you so that you may know 'the certainty' of the teachings you have received. And that is the heart of the matter, isn't it, because we are not believers because, phew, it suits us; we do not espouse the gospel because it allows us to better bear the harshness of life, no, but because it is the truth. It is a certainty. And that is something that deserves to be emphasized more in our preaching in our time when everyone is lost in a holy and intense contemplation of their navel, and where the relativity of all things seems to triumph.
We are grateful for all that God does for us, we are grateful for His love, His grace, His magnificence, His kindness, and His faithfulness. What wonderful things. But we do not believe in Him because and as long as He grants us these things. No, we believe in Him because He is. It just so happens that at the same time He is the Rewarder of those who seek Him. The Gospel is truth, beyond the happiness or otherwise that I can get out of it, regardless of the inconvenience it may cause me. And there are times when it seems to me that it makes me, or at least makes my unregenerate flesh which continues to influence my emotions, less happy than I would have liked. And that is where knowing the truth makes all the difference.
When Christ is proclaimed as absolute Truth and not merely as a means of compensating for the inconveniences of life, we will see Christians who believe in Christ, who acknowledge Him as Lord, Savior, and Master, in their conscious and subconscious; who understand that it is a privilege to belong to Him and that He deserves our complete allegiance and submission, not because He gives us a miserable BMW but because, by paying the high price, He has saved our souls from eternal destruction and reconciled us to God, we will see less withdrawal, less carnality, less lukewarmness, and fewer backsliders.
The Scriptures are truth; we are Christians because Christ is Truth, His words are truth. However we come to Christ, whether by a sudden revelation like Peter or by God's intervention on your behalf that finally opens our previously blind eyes to the reality of Christ, we must all come to the point where we recognize in our hearts 'the certainty' of these things. As a result, our faith becomes non-negotiable, and our commitment to Jesus' words and principles takes priority over all other considerations. We become indifferent to mockery, and disdain becomes insignificant, for when we have found the pearl of great price, all else is mere bauble.
Shalom!
Amen. May this truth become reality in my life!