Last night, my wife and I sat down to watch some television. We watched some American Idol (come on, you know you are too) and then after that was a new television game show on the FOX channel called Moment of Truth. The commercials about the show had interested us enough so we stayed tuned to see what it was like.
The show’s premise and execution is very simple. You sit in a chair across from the host and get asked a variety of questions and you have to answer them truthfully. (The contestants have already been asked these questions prior to the show while being hooked up to a polygraph, so the truthfulness of their answers are already known beforehand.) As long as you keep telling the truth to the questions asked, you work your way up earning higher and higher amounts of money. You lie once and you lose it all, but you can stop at any time and walk away with what you’ve won so far. Simple enough.
The only catch is the higher the dollar values are, the tougher and more personal the questions get. The contestants are not alone in this process. They have three of their closest friends, relatives or spouses seated close to them. I could not believe how humiliating and embarrassing–and yes, invasive–some of these questions were. For example, there was a gentleman who was flat out asked if he had ever had sex with someone on the same day he had met the person. His wife was one of the people seated close by.
Personally, I thought this show was borderline sleazy and was yet another example of the great corporate dumbing down of America. (So, don’t check it out if you value your brain cells.) However, it made me think about my life and my willingness to sit in that chair and be completely open and honest to the entire world about anything and everything in my life, including my thoughts and my actions when no one was around to watch me.
Honestly, I will admit that there’s absolutely no amount of money that anyone could pay me to do that. There are many things I am embarrassed about, many things I’d rather sweep under the rug. We value so much what others think of us, especially those closest to us. What would they say or think if our minds, actions, hearts and souls were completely laid bare for the world to see?
If the people closest to us don’t know our real truths, there’s someone who’s closer who knows EVERYTHING about us, including what we don’t want to be known to the world. Our Creator knows every embarrassing thought that we’ve thought and cringeworthy action that we’ve done. Man, all I can say is thank God for His eternal grace and forgiveness!
If you’ve been feeling embarrassed or remorseful about something lately and you’ve been delaying talking to God about it, just remember that He already knows because He was there. Rather than cringe about that, think of it as a comforting thing. Just think: there’s nothing that you did that is so embarrassing, so horribly wrong that you can’t come before Him and ask for forgiveness because He already knows what happened and is waiting for you to come to Him with the truth. And THAT, my friends, is the true, comforting moment of truth. No lie.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Matt
forgivenessGodgracesintruth
Our Moment of Truth
January 24, 2008
Calvary
Comments Off on Our Moment of Truth
Matt
Last night, my wife and I sat down to watch some television. We watched some American Idol (come on, you know you are too) and then after that was a new television game show on the FOX channel called Moment of Truth. The commercials about the show had interested us enough so we stayed tuned to see what it was like.
The show’s premise and execution is very simple. You sit in a chair across from the host and get asked a variety of questions and you have to answer them truthfully. (The contestants have already been asked these questions prior to the show while being hooked up to a polygraph, so the truthfulness of their answers are already known beforehand.) As long as you keep telling the truth to the questions asked, you work your way up earning higher and higher amounts of money. You lie once and you lose it all, but you can stop at any time and walk away with what you’ve won so far. Simple enough.
The only catch is the higher the dollar values are, the tougher and more personal the questions get. The contestants are not alone in this process. They have three of their closest friends, relatives or spouses seated close to them. I could not believe how humiliating and embarrassing–and yes, invasive–some of these questions were. For example, there was a gentleman who was flat out asked if he had ever had sex with someone on the same day he had met the person. His wife was one of the people seated close by.
Personally, I thought this show was borderline sleazy and was yet another example of the great corporate dumbing down of America. (So, don’t check it out if you value your brain cells.) However, it made me think about my life and my willingness to sit in that chair and be completely open and honest to the entire world about anything and everything in my life, including my thoughts and my actions when no one was around to watch me.
Honestly, I will admit that there’s absolutely no amount of money that anyone could pay me to do that. There are many things I am embarrassed about, many things I’d rather sweep under the rug. We value so much what others think of us, especially those closest to us. What would they say or think if our minds, actions, hearts and souls were completely laid bare for the world to see?
If the people closest to us don’t know our real truths, there’s someone who’s closer who knows EVERYTHING about us, including what we don’t want to be known to the world. Our Creator knows every embarrassing thought that we’ve thought and cringeworthy action that we’ve done. Man, all I can say is thank God for His eternal grace and forgiveness!
If you’ve been feeling embarrassed or remorseful about something lately and you’ve been delaying talking to God about it, just remember that He already knows because He was there. Rather than cringe about that, think of it as a comforting thing. Just think: there’s nothing that you did that is so embarrassing, so horribly wrong that you can’t come before Him and ask for forgiveness because He already knows what happened and is waiting for you to come to Him with the truth. And THAT, my friends, is the true, comforting moment of truth. No lie.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Matt
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