My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
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| GOD WHO NEVER LIES |
| Titus 1:2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began |
| Paul, is writing to his disciple Titus, as he seeks to instruct him in the oversight of believers in a local area. The local area Titus ministered in was the island of Crete, off the coast of Greece. In order to lay a foundation for the instruction to be provided ahead by the apostle Paul, Titus is informed of the type of God he is serving on the isle of Crete. It is instructive to note that Paul describes those Titus ministers to as liars. Titus 1:12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” The Cretans are self confessed liars. A people group known for being liars, deceptive, untruthful. This brings up an interesting observation, in that every culture, or social group, there tends to be at least one predominant social weakness, a sin that permeates and is accepted by the group. For the people Titus ministered to, one of these acceptable social sins was the act of lying. Now I don’t know about you, but when I think of a social acceptance of lying as a sin, it must be very destructive to the social order. Trust cannot be granted, relationships are always fragile, and commitments end up in courts. Of course, lies have a wide range of descriptions ranging from equivocations, through exaggerations, understatements, concealments, deliberate lies and felony level lies. Also, we often think of lies as directed outwards, but many times, to our own hurt always, we find ourselves lying to ourselves. 1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Before we proceed with the verse above though, one additional aspect of lying should be considered, and it is related to lying to oneself. James 1:23 -24 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. To forget the type of people we are is a deception we allow in our lives. It is to our wisdom that we are to continually realize the tremendous power and influence deception has in our own lives. It is easy to point a finger at a people group 2,000 years ago, on an island south of Greece, but at the very least, they had a poet that provided a self condemnation for their group acceptance of lying. Do we (as believers in the Messiah) have anyone in our lives reminding us of our base nature, our deceptive self that turns from truth? Relationships, that is deep relationships which provide opportunities for confrontation, and subsequent confession are few and far between for many believers. I myself find that it is much easier to listen to a preacher for 30 minutes, even in the car or late at night as I am falling asleep, than to look a dear friend in the eye and lie. To be engulfed in a lying lifestyle is to be alone, to separate yourself from others in order to continue in self deceit. For Titus, he was in the midst of liars. Liars throughout the island. Titus was commissioned to find men who exemplify the life of the believer, the mature Christian man that would provide guidance and oversight for Christians in the church. Men who could be trusted, that would mirror the character of the Messiah, Who was the full embodiment of all truth, with no deception whatsoever. He is the source of truth! James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. At no time can a valid claim be made that God has varied in His nature or message, He is the truth! For Titus, this led to a massive challenge. Jesus’ representatives are to be of the same nature, and of the same character, and Titus had a pool of liars to choose from. Of course, as Titus sought men of truth, he would find success, for the Lord changes liars into men of character, deceivers into men seeking the God of truth. On his own, Titus was provided a challenge that could not be met, but because he was serving the God who never lies, he will find his elders, and God continues to this day, changing deceivers into those who declare the truth! To return to the context of this letter to Titus, Paul does remind him that though he was to find elders, men of integrity and seeking the truth, he also had a secondary assignment that was strengthened by Paul’s reference to our God as One who never lies. Since the island was full of liars, some who had not trusted in the Messiah remained in the cesspool of deception, and fought to stay there, continuing in their deception and being an active and destructive force in the church. Titus, based on the truth that the God who never lies is commissioning him in his ministry amongst liars, has a twofold call to duty. Find truthful men through the work of God in their lives, and confront the liars. Not to simply confront liars, but he was to silence liars! A great example of this very action can be seen in the gospel. Jesus was being challenged in His teaching with questions one after another, and by the Wisdom of God, He provided rebuke and response that silenced his detractors. The 14th chapter of Mark is a fantastic retelling of how the Lord responded to deceivers with simple truth, and describes the unwillingness of the liars to continue attacking. Mark 12:34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. He was awesome while on earth, and He is the same God today. As we follow, we also have the call to silence those who oppose the gospel, and this call will not be without struggle, but as we seek to silence those who oppose the truth, it is critical that we remember that we serve the God who never lies! He can be trusted wholeheartedly and His message is the truth, for He is the God Who Never Lies! |
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
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