Life Changing Truth
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This week in our church staff meeting, we played a game called two truths and a lie. The main point of the game is to try and fool the others in the room and keep them from discovering which statement is a lie. Some of us might’ve been a bit better at that game than others. Just saying! But seriously, telling a lie that people will believe is not easy for most of us. Trying to live a lie and keep up a false narrative can be hard work. And then there’s always a reckoning that will come one way or another when the truth will be made known in this life or the next. Everybody that walks this earth can count on the fact that no matter how much we deny it, the truth will ultimately come crashing in on our world.
In the text this week, life changing events are happening all around Paul and Silas. An evil spirit is sent out of a slave girl and it results in their beating and imprisonment. A great earthquake hits their prison and breaks their chains. The prison doors broke free but not a single prisoner fled. A private discharge was ordered for Paul and Silas from the prison but Paul demanded a personal escort out from his captors. The local magistrates came and escorted them out of the prison with an apology too. What we see here is an unshakeable God working through His people to reveal His power and authority. A greater reality is being revealed through the Word of the Lord concerning the power of the Gospel to save everyone. The truth of God has come crashing in on their world. Neither local officials nor evil spirits held any great authority. A prison and its jailer were no match. All bow down at the power of God and His amazing grace.
In the midst of all these things, we see Paul and Silas and the church in Philippi experience life-changing faith in Jesus Christ that grounds them in the truth of the gospel. After all they’ve been through, that they’ve suffered and seen, their faith is unshakeable because of the One who holds them. For those who trust in Christ Jesus, like Paul and Silas, the truth sets us free to preach the gospel to a world in need and to rejoice in the midst of that same world as it is shaking, breaking and striking out against us. How can this be? As followers of Christ Jesus, we walk with an awareness of the truth that Jesus always gets the last word and it is a true and better word that will dismantle any deceitful scheme of the enemy. The cross of Christ and His resurrection give us confidence in that prevailing truth.
May we rest in the fact that our faith is founded and perfected in the One who holds the whole world in His hands and that no power or dominion of this world will overthrow His amazing plan of eternal salvation for us. As His church, let us rejoice together in the reality of the gospel truth about our great Deliverer and King Jesus!
Grateful and hopeful in Christ,
Jon