If we lack love for the truth

Imagine if we can avoid losing a lot of money in tax if we just make a false statement. Many people, including Christians, will go ahead without a second thought. For them, money is tangible and so is its immediate usefulness. But they don't think about failing in the test God had placed before them, losing the anointing and usefulness they could have had if they had passed the test, and the indescribable loss they would face in eternity! How do they justify themselves? Everybody does it, God understands our practical difficulties, we can always confess it and receive forgiveness? Some of these people have never even been born again, but they are on the broad way leading ultimately to destruction that Jesus described, counting on the love and mercy of God that presumably overlooks all failures (Mt.7:13,14).

Let's say we have been truly born again, having repented from sin and decided to follow Jesus. Do we think that that is it, and the next thing we will experience is being with Jesus when we die? Haven't we realised that even after being born again, we are far from being like Jesus in the way we think, speak and behave, and don't we want to be rid of our sinful behaviour and become like Him? That is what is to happen now if we deny ourselves and follow Him (Lk.9:23). What will happen if, on the contrary, we keep pleasing ourselves and don't bother to be faithful to God in the little and big decisions of life? (Lk.16:10,11).

After we are born again, it is a life of obedience to the things God shows us. Many disobey God by refusing even to look at the matter of taking water baptism. Many others refuse the spiritual gifts God wants to give them and the ministries they can do using them. People search the Bible to find verses to justify their infant baptism or their cessationist views, not realising what treasures of spiritual life they are forfeiting in the bargain! Some tie themselves with chains after choosing to marry an unbelieving person, because of which they are going to bring in many conflicts and limit their usefulness to God. This kind of resistance happens not only by individuals resisting the truth which God presents to them here and there. Churches also resist truths that God wants to reform them with, and hold on to their old practices and tradition.

God's desire is to save us from our sins, not only from its punishment, but also in all the consequences there are in our flesh that cause us to come short of His glory. But it appears that very few 'love' truth in such a way that they are willing to obey that truth at all cost. "With all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved" (2Th.2:10). Can we see that in spite of God's loving plans for us to be saved in every way, we can be the ones who resist and even oppose different steps He takes us to. He wishes that every one of us will be saved, but let us not resist Him.