Regroup - a Process of Healing for Pain, Grief, and AddictionSample

Devotional:

Step 3: “God” Consider - “What is the truth?” and “why does the truth matter in my life?”

Jesus tells you that you are blessed when you hunger for righteousness - or when you have a deep desire to be right with God. He promises that when you have this sort of hunger or thirst - you will be filled!

In order to embrace today’s passages, it is first critical to understand an important concept - the concept of “truth.” A truth is something that is a reality whether anyone knows about it or not. There have been many truths throughout history that were “discovered.” Gravity and the other laws of physics have only been discovered in the past couple hundred years, in spite of the fact that they have always existed. Truths exist outside of knowledge. They are not dependent on human understanding or belief. A truth has always been true and will always be true.

However, in the second half of the 20th century, people started to disrupt this understanding of the idea of truth. Truth became “relative” as people tend to believe more often that their beliefs have an effect on truth. In the last few years - people have started to think that their feelings are their truth.

This is simply not true. Feelings are real. Beliefs exist. But that does not mean they are the truth. A person can believe they can fly or feel like they don’t need to breathe anymore in order to survive - but that does not have any effect on reality. Humans cannot fly without mechanical intervention, and though Aleix Segura has proven that a human can possibly hold their breath as long as 24 minutes and 3 seconds. Humans cannot defy the truth that they must breathe to survive.

If you take this understanding of truth and apply it to your understanding of the promises in the Bible, you will realize that the passages you read today are making truth statements. You are justified. You are redeemed. You have peace. You stand in grace. You have hope. These truth statements don’t come with question marks or conditions other than faith. If you have faith - they are yours. And there are many more truths in the bible about your identity. You are loved. You are beautifully and wonderfully made. You are an image-bearer of God.

These statements do not take your feelings into account. They do not change if you aren’t feeling them on a certain day or if you have doubts on another. They are true of you all the time - whether you’re having a good day or a bad day, whether you’ve sinned recently, or someone has hurt you. They are true of you if you ask for forgiveness or if you don’t. And if you stand in these truths, you have a new identity.

This is not an easy thing to remember - most people do not live as if these statements are true very often. As you ask God to steadily help you to live more and more in his truth - there is an alignment process that begins to shape our entire lives, including the hurt we have experienced.. But when we accept these truths - we have a new identity - and newfound strength to live at peace with others (but that’s tomorrow’s topic.)

Today’s Challenge:

Look at what you have written about during the first three days of this plan - and then look at the truth statements written in today’s passage. How does what you learned today change or inform what you’ve written the previous days?

Journal about the following questions - “How does the truth affect my feelings?” “What would God say is the truth about me when I think about my sin or the sins of others?”.