Distortion
One common description of the word “perspective” is: a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something: a point of view. Having been made free moral agents by God, there can therefore be a wide range of attitudes held or ways of regarding any subject that is brought up. In matters of personal opinion, it makes no difference. It does, though, make a huge difference in matters of truth.
Truth is not an opinion. In praying to our Father, Christ said:“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). Believers are sanctified – made holy – by God’s truth. That can only mean one thing. Our perspective of God’s truth can only reflect His own if we are to stay in the sanctified state. Truth is not subject to wide ranging attitudes or ways of regarding or interpreting it.
It is interesting how any one of us can read God’s truth from the Bible — read all the same words — and yet come up with our own perspective of it. We have all seen it and done it. Looking at God’s perspective (truth), we know that is not how it is supposed to work. “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come (John 16:13). This is a key verse to increase our understanding. If we cannot be humbly led to God’s truth by His Spirit, we’ll distort the truth with our own perspective of it, believing it is absolutely true. That is the nature of distortion. The arrogant who stiffen their necks to the Holy Spirit firmly believe they are upholding the truth. In reality, distorted truth only feeds an endless cycle of fractured relationships along with all the stress, sorrow and grief that goes with it.
The unity and oneness that can so easily evade us through our own distortion can only come one way. Christ said: “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). We need to be wise, and by yielding to the Holy Spirit, humbly search out our own distortions.
Marshall Stiver
