LHM Daily Devotion - September 6, 2017 "A Truth Test"

Here's a three question test for you:

Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries

By Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour

"A Truth Test"

September 6, 2017

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

~ Ephesians 1:13-14 (ESV)

Here's a three question test for you:

Question #1 - When you buy a food product in the grocery store and it has the word NATURAL on its label does it mean:

1. This food has no artificial ingredients, pesticides or genetically engineered organisms, OR
2. Does NATURAL mean absolutely nothing at all?

Question #2 - When you see a label which reads, "No Sugar Added", does it mean:

1. There are no added sweeteners in the product OR
2. There is no added "white sugar", but the company can still sweeten its product using brown rice syrup, agave nectar, molasses, steviaa, aspartame, and sucralose. Yes, those items have to be listed in microscopic print among the ingredients, but the front of the package can BOLDLY proclaim "No Sugar Added."

Question #3 -According to a recent Class-Action lawsuit brought against Nestle, when you buy Poland Spring Water

1. You are purchasing high-quality spring water which comes from an underground formation and is bottled after it has naturally made its way to the surface or
2. Are you being charged premium prices for water which has probably been taken from common, everyday, groundwater wells?

For those of you who really want to know, the answers to all of the questions are "2."

Disappointing, isn't it?

The bottom line is this: for many groups, companies, individuals, movements, political systems and religions, words are a means to an end, a way to manipulate and get people to trust them. Sadly, this manipulation of words can become so overwhelming and universal, many people despair of ever finding anyone, or anything in which they can place their trust.

They think the chances of actually coming face-to-face with truth is as likely as stumbling across a unicorn, bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.

In contrast to the world's all-too-flexible version of the truth, I would have you take a look at the Lord's Word, the Holy Bible. There, with unbroken reliability and unswerving accuracy, it points to the Christ as being the Redeemer of the world.

From the first promise of a Savior made to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to the Christ's fulfillment of that promise in a Bethlehem manger, on a Jerusalem cross and in a borrowed and empty tomb, God's word can be trusted. It will tell troubled and lost souls how the Lord has done everything necessary to forgive their sins and bring them to salvation.

THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, I give thanks that while humankind feels free to manipulate the truth with their words, You do not. For giving me the truth of Scripture which leads me to the Redeemer, I give thanks. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin!  Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).