The Truth – almost
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My first words this week need to be words of gratitude. Many of you donated to our ministry last week through the North Texas Giving Day, and once again, we at Denison Ministries realize we are abundantly blessed. You, our readers and friends, make this ministry possible. We praise God for each of you.
I went back and forth on this blog post. Should I write it or should I not? In the end, the message was so close to the focus of our entire ministry that I decided it was important for us to consider.
If you have been a reader of this blog post for a while, you know I am a huge fan of Christian music. Some of the best “God thoughts” these days are in our music. A song that is playing often now on our Christian stations is one that I almost love.
The song is practically perfect, except for one important line. The song is titled “The Truth,” and it is mostly true. Take a few minutes to listen to the song by Megan Woods. Are you able to discern the one line in “The Truth” that just isn’t biblical truth?
Why does that one line matter?
I spoke to two groups last week, making this point to both: God’s word is pure truth and doesn’t contain any error. Yet, we live in a culture that often feels the need to alter God’s word to align with or sympathize with people’s emotions, values, and feelings.
All of us at Denison Ministries have committed to a singular value. If we write content, we want it consistent with biblical teaching, even when it might not be a culturally popular subject. We never want to teach something about God that the Bible would not teach.
That’s why one morning when I was enjoying a Christian song titled “The Truth,” I cringed a little when I heard the chorus. Did you pick out the line that doesn’t stand with the “truth” of God’s word?
Megan Woods sings, “I was made in the image of a perfect King.” That is full truth. God is our Father, and he loves us completely, as a perfect King loves his child. But the line that follows that truth says, “He looks at me and wouldn’t change a thing.” That one line is just not true.
Why does that one line matter so much that I wanted to write a blog post about it?
Jesus said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Jesus was praying for his disciples when he said, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). If I could rewrite that one line in the song “The Truth,” it would say, “I was made in the image of a perfect King. He saved my soul and changed everything.”
Right now, a great movement in Christian ministry is especially appealing to the younger generations—one that is especially important to correct. The message intends to bring healing, comfort, and self-esteem to a generation that has been greatly impacted by the content and messaging of a lot of the social media they consume. But if a message isn’t biblically true, it won’t be truly helpful to our lives.
That one line in the song matters because while God loves us as we are, he would never leave us as we are. In fact, his great love for us is why he sent his Son to die for every sin we would commit. God gave us Jesus so that we could be “born again” and experience complete change. The problem with that one line is that it dismisses the lifelong journey of sanctification that God wants us to live.
Why is the need for sanctification crucial biblical truth?
One of the great omissions in much of today’s popular preaching is God’s command to be sanctified. Over and over again, God said in the Old Testament, “Be holy because I am holy.” Jesus prayed we would be sanctified by the truth.
In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul wrote to Christians who were slipping back into the Gentile practices they had lived with. Paul was very specific about their need to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord continuously. He wrote about their desire to carry on with some of the cultural practices, saying, “But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:20–24).
To teach that God “wouldn’t change a thing” about our lives is to deny the truth of Scripture. It also gives the listener permission to live without the transforming work of the Holy Spirit that God has given his children. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9–10).
God, our heavenly Father, loves us as we are. Our salvation means we are his beloved child. The perfection and holiness of God calls his children to live perfected holy lives, growing in wisdom and grace and knowledge of who he is. God wants his children to become more like him every day.
How might the truth about sanctification change our culture?
I love almost all of Megan Woods’s song, “The Truth,” but I had to write about that one line: Truth matters because partial truth deceives.
A 2024 WebMD article stated, “Teen mental health problems have hit a new peak in the US, and the gap between the number of teenagers who report conditions like anxiety, depression, and hopelessness and the number of those who receive treatment is increasing.” Our kids need to know they are loved by a perfect God, but they also need to know that God’s truth is the source of their self-esteem. God doesn’t want to leave them as they are. He wants them to be sanctified by the truth and continuously strive to be like him. Holiness can be their lasting confidence if it is their lifelong goal. The same is true for all of us.
People’s feelings truly matter, just not as much as the truth of God’s word. God made certain we would have his word and be filled with his Spirit so that we could live with the discernment we need to ignore the cultural versions of truth and trust what actually is truth.
It might seem that I have been too picky about one line of a song, but if a song is titled “The Truth,” then it needs to be entirely true. Discernment matters, and as our culture continues to drift from biblical truth, it will become increasingly crucial that God’s children do not.
Our perfect God loves us as we are, but we can be grateful that he wants to change who we are. Our Father wants us to be sanctified, made holy, so we can become more like him.
