Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 17 verses 14 through 19:
14I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.* 16They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
The great Czech poet dissident turned statesman said, "The only way to resist tyranny is to live the truth."
Ukraine is a long ways away. We are trying to help however we can. We'll be taking up a collection for humanitarian response in Ukraine at lunch at church on Sunday. Our children will be collecting coins throughout the month.
We're trying to limit the harm however we can.
But we need to resist tyranny at home here too. We have to live the truth. We have to expect the truth. We can't any longer be okay with deception, and lies, and other actions which undermine the truth.
When I interned for a congressman from my home district many years ago my job was to answer the phones in the Washington office. I was told that if anyone called and asked to speak with the congressman I was to tell them he was on the House floor voting -- even when he wasn't.
I never complied with that directive. But I also didn't fully appreciate how the request to lie in a little way like that would join thousands and thousands of other little lies to become millions and millions of lies that led us to January 6, 2021.
They say truth is the first casualty of war. It's also true that lies are the advance force of war.
Let us resist tyranny and war by choosing to live the truth -- in big ways and small.
And let us remember, the small really do matter also.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
No comments:
Post a Comment