Pastor Jim Wilkins
It’s a simple thing. When a story begins with “This is a true story,” which is followed by the narrative being told, regardless of whose telling it, the choice becomes for each of us, “Do you believe?” Simple, right? We can make the choice to believe it if there is empirical evidence to support the story. We can make the choice to believe it because all our peers believe it to be true. We can make the choice to believe it because we feel it is true. Or we can just “on faith” trust it to be true. Is every story beginning with this phrase the absolute truth? Clearly a rhetorical question, for we know this is not the case. Authors, movie scriptwriters, news reporters, politicians and some theologians, in an effort to promote their own agenda or belief may occasionally “fudge” the facts of the narrative they dictate as a “true story.” Where does that leave us when this happens? We don’t want to look foolish when this narrative is proven untrue. Should we investigate everything through snopes.com, which touts itself “the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors and misinformation?” How accurate can they be on questions of scientific discovery or matters of faith?
The story is told of a Creator who invests Himself in all of humanity, by creating us like Himself. Planting inside of us the ability to know Him, interact with Him, through a personal relationship with Him. The narrative is given in the history of a people group, told in some detail by hundreds of authors over thousands of years. The culmination of the story is the life, birth and death of one human being, said in the narrative to be the very Son of the Creator Himself. The story says that this Son of the Creator came so that humanity might be restored to a right relationship with the Creator, while defining that the Son and the Creator Himself are one and the same, in essence…God. The conclusion of the Son’s life resolves in the resurrection and ascension back to the throne of the Creator. The followers of the Son carried the narrative forward, all the way to today. The very words of the Son Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; and no one comes to the Father, but through me,” capture the very heart of the message in the narrative.
It’s a simple thing really. The Creator knows you. He designed you with purpose and a meaning for your existence. This meaning and purpose is found when you are rightly related to Him, within His design for you. You find this design in the Son, who while here was perfectly related to the Creator.
This is the narrative, and it is presented as the absolute truth. Now the only question is, “Do you believe?”
Jim Wilkins is the Pastor of Fellowship at the Ranch. We meet each Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. in the clubhouse.