Job 12:13 “To God belong wisdom and power;
    counsel and understanding are his.”

In this chapter, Job is rattling off truisms about God to his three friends, who have been using such truisms to attack him. It’s not that any of these things are wrong, it’s the way in which they are used. Context and intention are always important. It is popular these days to deny the existence of absolute truth, but denying it doesn’t make it go away. At issue is our perception of it. Some well-meaning Christians use the Bible like a cudgel to beat people up. That doesn’t make it any less true, but it essentially takes truth out of the equation. As Paul famously expressed in 1 Corinthians 13, truth without love becomes meaningless. The flip side of that is that feelings don’t negate truth. We can’t negate gravity, for example, by wanting it to be different. This is a tension we all live with. Even God has to deal with it, and He chose a most extreme method to do so. It is absolutely true that He is perfectly holy, making it impossible for sinful beings to approach Him, other than for judgment. What He chose to do was to give His own Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, so that those who believe that Christ died for them receive His righteousness by faith. You could not get more extreme than that! The Gospel is that we are all sinners, rightly and justly headed for hell, but God provided an “escape hatch,” so to speak, but it requires humility, and we can be sadly short of that. God is love, but we must repent to receive Him as Lord.

This is the story of my life, as it actually is for every human being. I have had less excuse than most, because I have been taught God’s truth from infancy, but all too often I have chosen to ignore it. Pride is a terrible snare! Now, I seek to lead others into God’s truth, but find that my own wisdom and knowledge are insufficient. I’ve got to be humble enough to ask God to use even me to lead others into His gracious salvation, because I can’t do it myself. However, I am deeply grateful to say that He has used and does use me. I am not to take personal credit, particularly in my own mind, but give all the glory to Him. I’ve got to be careful of both sides of “speaking the truth in love,” never deviating from God’s truth, but staying filled with love: love for God and love for my neighbor, all because of His love for us.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me never spout truisms, but always speak Your truth in love. Keep me from backing down from Your truth, but never because of pride. May I understand more and more the magnificence of Your grace toward me, so that I may be a more effective channel of that grace toward others, for their blessing and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!