A home full of grace is also full of truth, because grace doesn’t make people less holy; it makes them more holy. Grace doesn’t make people despise or neglect truth; it makes them love and follow truth. Far from a free pass to sin, grace is a supernatural empowerment not to sin (Titus 2:11-12). Grace raises the bar, but it also enables us to joyfully jump over that bar. Any concept of grace that leaves us – or our children – thinking that truth is unimportant is not biblical grace.
The Grace and Truth Paradox, 2003, Used by Permission from Eternal Perspective Ministries, www.epm.org, p. 66. Get this book!
Truth renews the mind. Indeed, the truth which would affect the heart, which moves the heart, which changes the heart, must first enter through the vestibule of the mind if it would enter the sanctuary of the heart. The intention of truth preached is to affect the emotions and the will and the heart and the whole of our humanity…and thus preaching must come first through the mind. It makes its appeal through the mind; it enters through the mind – but it doesn’t simply stop with the mind.
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 168-169.
Truth is an inevitable expression of our concern with God – God who is the measure of all things, who reveals to us His mind. He reveals His mind to us in the words of sacred Scripture so that we might hear and understand the mind of God.
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 169.
To not love and embrace the truth, to not worship God in Spirit and in truth, invites spiritual destruction (2 Thes. 2:8 ff). It is not a matter of “a better way,” or “the best way,” it is a matter of the only way. If you would know God, you must know Him “in truth” and you must worship Him “in truth.”
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 176.
When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.
Truth is what God thinks; it is what God does; it is what God is; it is what God has revealed of Himself in the Bible. Truth is found in its fullest form in God, for He is truth; He is the very source and origin of all truth.
Truth and Discernment by Tim Challies taken from The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies, copyright 2007, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, page 94.
If I speak what is false, I must answer for it; if truth, it will answer for me.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 300.
The Lord Jesus Christ gave the proper pattern in the Gospel of John, chapter eight, verse thirty-two, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” What that truth is, is seen in the previous verse, “My Word.” God’s design is from truth to experience, not from experience to truth! The formula: “I have had an experience. I find experiences like mine in the Bible. Therefore my experience is Scriptural” is dangerously misleading.
The Corinthian Catastrophe, 1974, Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. p. 58. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.
Divine truth and godliness are inextricably related. No matter how sincere our intentions might be, we cannot obey God’s will if we do not know what it is. We cannot be godly if we do not know what God is like and what He expects of those who belong to Him.
The Power of Integrity, Crossway, 1997, p. 38.
The truth of God is the most important thing in the world. It’s more important than anything else, and it’s more important than everything else combined. The truth reveals God… It must be spoken and it must be written no matter what the effects may be and the effects are predictable. On the one hand, some people believe and all heaven breaks loose. On the other hand, some people do not believe and all hell breaks loose.
Divine Truth Confronts Human Tradition. The sermon originally appeared (https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-70/divine-truth-confronts-human-tradition) at www.gty.org. © 1969-2008. Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by Permission.
If there is a religion in the world which exalts the office of teaching, it is safe to say that it is the religion of Jesus Christ. It has been frequently remarked that in pagan religions the doctrinal element is at a minimum—the chief thing there is the performance of a ritual. But this is precisely where Christianity distinguishes itself from other religions—it does contain doctrine. It comes to men with definite, positive teaching; it claims to be the truth; it bases religion on knowledge, though a knowledge which is only attainable under moral conditions. … A religion divorced from earnest and lofty thought has always, down the whole history of the Church, tended to become weak, jejune and unwholesome; while the intellect, deprived of its rights within religion, has sought its satisfaction without, and developed into godless rationalism.
The Christian View of God and the World, Scribner, 1897, p. 20-21.
Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about matters, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.
It’s possible to be so nice in an effort to show grace that we in reality keep people away from receiving grace themselves. The most loving thing we can do is speak truth both to unbelievers and believers. Our primary goal is not to help each other feel good, but help each other be good. Without truth there can be no grace!
Full of Grace and Truth, John 1:14, December 25, 2016.
Christ’s people must have bold, unflinching lion-like hearts, loving Christ first, and His truth next, and Christ and His truth beyond all the world.
Morning and Evening, Morning April 5.
Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other.
Sermon, A Defense of Calvinism.
Truth must be spoken however it be taken.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 300.
