Kedo Peseyie
There is no doubt in our minds that Christ was a man of many talents with amazing potential. But the truth is, he didn’t need these talents or genius in him to convince people. Often when he did a miracle he warned people not to talk about it to others. But there was a quality in him that attracted people to give their full attention whenever he spoke out. He attracted multitudes. How did he do it? What was it that was so attractive? Was it the miracles? Was it his special birth? Was it his rhetoric and his voice? Maybe. But above all these, I believe it was his honesty that attracted people. He was an honest man. He spoke the simple truth—nothing less, nothing more.
Today many may like to think that it was his rhetoric, his voice or the miracles that made him a special person. Many today get lost in these external and unimportant things. And that is why “following Christ” becomes rather easy for them because they are not confronted with the fact that following Christ also means speaking the truth, the simple and uncomfortable truth—nothing less, nothing more. Some may even try to get you to think (as some have tried to me) that if you can speak and act like “Miracle Net” (and of course send some seed money to them), all your problems will be over in a jiffy. That is one great lie I love to hate. But sadly, that has become true for many Naga Christians.
We live in a world where “truth” changes all the time. Something is true during the election campaign. It becomes a lie and a sick joke after the elections. Something is true in the pulpit. It becomes a lie in our daily lives. And what is even worse is that we change the standards or the weights by which we measure truth and honesty and rationalize our questionable actions.
Today we live in an era where truth in sacrificed at the altar of materialism, tradition, gun-culture etc. It is the age of what sociologists and scholars call Postmodernism or the Post Modern world where people don’t believe in absolute truth anymore. Many Nagas claim that they don’t know anything about postmodernism. But the irony is, we are thoroughly postmodern to the core. We may claim not to know about it, but our lives and our appetite shows it clearly for us. Almost everyday we sacrifice the truth and rationalize the lie.
Some results of postmodern thinking are:
• Whatever is right for you is right for you; whatever is right for me is right for me. We have different realities.
• I can do what I want and you cannot question my actions. You can do what you want and if it suits you, that’s fine.
• I can believe whatever I want to believe. You can believe whatever you want to believe. We have different truths.
So we see that it is not the bare truth anymore. It is the rationalization or the interpretations. We rationalize behaviors. We interpret events and behaviors and that becomes truth for us. For examples, a boy and a girl are in a live-in relationship in a faraway city (I am sure each reader can come up with his/her own living example from among relatives and friends, like I do, and pretend not to know). Co-habitation, as we call it. Or to put it more religiously: a brother from Mokokchung and a sister from Kohima staying together in the same flat. And we interpret it saying, “Oh everybody is doing it these days. Besides they love each other. And they are getting married anyway.” That has become the sad truth for them. But that is not the truth according to the Bible.
As Christian who believe and read the Bible, we know that God is the author of all truths. God’s truth will never change. God’s truth revealed in the Bible will never change. Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away. And a curse will be upon him/her who tries to change, add or delete God’s truth.
We are witnessing a dangerous crisis of truth today. Truth is under attack. The great challenge for us as people who believe in the Bible is whether we can be people who stand in the truth, for the truth and live in the truth.
We need not and cannot confine all truths to the bible. A philosopher said, “All truth is God’s truth.” Whether it is in the area of business, politics, contract work, journalism, a truth is a truth and God is the author of that truth.
Sometime ago a student came to me saying, “I know somebody mishandling public money but as a Christian I don’t feel good challenging and confronting him.”
I challenged him saying, “If you know it is the truth and you have evidence, then you are not a true Christian if you do not speak out for the truth.” He did speak out. He created some hiccups in that small organization and some hated him. But in the end he did what he was required to do as a Christian—to stand for the truth. Emerson said, “Truth is the pain which will not stop.”
This new year if you can stand up for something you know is the truth, even if it hurts, be encourage to know that you are taking your stand for God. And when you take your stand for God, God will stand with you.
Today there are many different views, interpretations, philosophies, religions, and they change all the time. But if you can stand in the unchanging truth of God revealed in the Bible, you need not fear. You will be like a tree planted in the streams of water that bears its fruit in season. It is stable. Its leaves do not wither and whatsoever it doeth prospers.
Truth is important. Speaking the truth even more so. To start with, let’s try to speak the truth at least for a week in the following areas: (1) Speak the truth to ourselves. Because if we lie to ourselves, we can never improve. We can never build on our strengths or strengthen our weakness. (2) Speak the truth to others. We live in relationships. Relationships thrive on trust. And trust cannot survive without truth. (3) Speak the truth to God. Who are we trying to lie to anyway? But the reality is, we don’t tell him the truth many time. No relationship can thrive without truth.
