whitewashed

The truth can be hard, but following God requires a devotion to truth. In Ezekiel’s day, people showed a strong preference for good news, and prophets earned God’s wrath for not telling them the hard truth.

Here’s an example from Ezekiel 13:15-16 “So I will pour out my wrath against the wall and against those who covered it with whitewash. I will say to you, ‘The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it, those prophets of Israel who prophesied to Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her when there was no peace, declares the Sovereign Lord."'

God called those lies whitewash, explaining that it made a flimsy structure look good. The whitewash misled God’s people into relying on a false hope for peace, when God was trying to get them to see the threat they were under. In this case, probably in most cases, whitewashing the truth earned God’s wrath.

It’s a call to me to tell the truth. Not brutally -”Yes, you look fat!” - but lovingly, meaning when and in ways that will help people live closer to God. I need to find the courage to remind people that some of what our culture accepts is sin. I need to find the courage to point out that some of what we Christians do to others is also sin. And I need to be brave enough always to remind even those who don’t want to hear it that there is hope, but only in Jesus.

It’s also a call to me to love the truth. Sometimes I don’t want to hear it. Sometimes I want to believe that the candidate for the other party has no good in them. Sometimes I want to believe that God’s grace is permission to sin. Sometimes I don’t want to hear the truth about what God wants me to do with my money.

But that’s like not wanting to know the calories in a piece of pecan pie. Those calories will still sit on my hips until I somehow work them off, whether I acknowledge the truth about them or not. In the same way God’s truth will haunt me, whether I accept it or not.

Serving God requires loving the truth, and speaking the truth in love. By God’s grace, may I do that today.