Can We Trust God’s Claim of Truth?

Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. (John 17:17)

Today’s big question: can we trust God’s claim of truth?

When Jesus was coming toward the end of His earthly ministry, He prayed a prayer filled with intimate love for us, petitioning the Father on behalf of His disciples. Within this amazing prayer is one little sentence in John 17:17 that is so packed with significance we could preach a multitude of sermons on it and never complete the whole subject.

For example, when we shift our focus from one word to the next, we continue to discover that this great utterance by Jesus is incomprehensible. By focusing on the word “is,” we would see that God’s Word does not just contain truth and is not just “a” truth among many, but God’s Word is truth. The phrase “Your Word” suggests not only every word in Scripture as breathed out through His chosen human instruments, but also Scripture as a whole and His Word as reflected through our Savior—Jesus is described as the Word (John 1:1) and He claims to be the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).

By focusing on the word “Your” and looking at the who of truth, we would see that ”Your” refers to the limitless God who created all things and is over all things. Throughout all recorded history, we could study the world we live in to witness the confirming evidence of His omniscience, omnipotence, and providence. We could spend weeks considering God’s faithfulness in carrying out His truth in every single promise to His people, and the many prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. We could invest many profitable hours looking at God’s character and His covenant faithfulness to His children.

And by also focusing on how this statement says “sanctify them” by Your truth, we would see how truth affects our lives directly. Jesus prayed that God would sanctify His disciples by His truth, so that we would be made more holy and pure through the work of God’s truth in our life. We could examine the testimonies of many who have lived before us and see how there has never been an authentic acceptance of God’s truth without a transformational change in the heart and life of the believer.

God’s Word is truth; it is God’s truth, it is confirmable truth, it is consistent truth, and it is transformational truth. Jesus’s prayer really does say it all.

Today’s big idea: you can trust the Word of the Lord.

What to pray: ask that God would open your eyes to His truth and transform your life.