The Truth Of Reality

“Your purpose here in life is to discern the real thing from the BS, and then to choose the non-BS,” said a Canadian professor of 17th century poetry to one of his students.  “But the good news is that, although we struggle with it, there is a way out.  Yes, there is a very worthy antidote and option to all the BS.”

The solution the professor was referring to is Jesus Christ.  The seed of that idea germinated and led his protege to faith in Christ when she was a doctoral student at Oxford University.  She recalled her professor’s words and the ideas which led her to faith in Jesus Christ in her memoir Surprised by Oxford.

Jesus’ said to his followers on earth before his death,  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)   In the original Greek the word for truth is alētheia.  In ancient Greek, alētheia means “reality.”  Jesus is saying, “I am the reality.”  Jesus is saying if you have seen me, you have seen God.  I have made him real.  God is reality.  I am God.  I am reality. Reality is Jesus; not the BS going on around us, or our own BS.

If you believe Jesus’ authority as God, that he is reality; if you receive his claim on your life as your reality; if you receive his life through the person of the Holy Spirit, then you become and experience God as a loving heavenly father and inherit all the rights of a child of God.

But Jesus didn’t leave his followers or us with simple words, or a grand statement that he is reality.  He gives us power to experience and wield that reality through the person of the Holy Spirit.

In John 14: 16, 17a Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. . .” 

Here again, the word for truth in ancient Greek means “reality.”  Jesus is saying you believe me, you receive me, you obey me, and then you will get the Spirit of reality.  The Holy Spirit is reality.  The Holy Spirit gives us power to know, perceive, understand and release the power of reality — God — into our current reality.

God’s reality empowers us.  Maybe your schoolwork or job is leaving you confused.  You have mean teachers, classmates, coaches, bosses or coworkers.  You are not getting along as nicely as you would like with people in your family.  Maybe your sick or money is tight.  Maybe you need the power of the reality of the Holy Spirit in your current reality.  Maybe you need to release the power of the reality of the Holy Spirit into the lives of other people whose current reality is oppressing them. 

Have you had it with all the BS?  Would you like to surrender to Jesus and God through the reality of the Holy Spirit as king of your reality?  Do you need the reality of the HolySpirit to become your new reality today?