Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
I have a weighty question for you today. What is truth? We live in a world where truth has become a very flexible term, where most people have been encouraged to find their own personal truth. What is meant by this is to figure out your own perception of reality based on how you feel, how you think, and what brings you the most joy in life.
While that might sound freeing, it's actually a very dangerous way to live, especially because today we have so many voices filling our lives. I feel like I'm never just sitting in silence anymore because in the palm of my hand, I've got millions of podcasts, I can get in the car and turn on hundreds of radio stations. I go to work and I hear so many opinions from coworkers, and then I go home and I talk to my family about their own thoughts, and it just feels like there's these voices swirling around in our minds as we try to figure out what is actually true.
The Danger of Information Overload
There's a lot of benefits to the digital age and the way that we can share information, but there's also a danger behind that. Lately, I’ve found that when I'm on social media, I'll be scrolling through reels and I'll watch a video and I'll go, that's so incredible. Then I'll bring it up with somebody later and I'll share what I thought was a fact, and they'll go, you know that's not true, right?
I'll say, yes, it is. I saw it online. Of course, a couple minutes of researching and I find out that I'm actually wrong. I had believed it because it sounded good, it seemed powerful, and it seemed helpful. That's what Paul is going to warn us about in our verse today, that not everything that sounds good is actually good.
Paul's Warning About Flashy Ideas
Let's read about that in Colossians chapter 2, verse 8. The apostle says, "Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ."
Paul's reminding us that flashy ideas are just that. They're all flash, but there's no substance. They're often rooted in popular opinions, and maybe even sometimes they seem spiritually grounded and like they want to help us grow closer to Jesus. If we're not careful and don’t exercise discernment, they can actually pull us away from Christ.
We all face a choice every single day. Are we going to let our opinions, our idea of reality, be dictated by the opinions and voices we hear around us? Or are we going to let the truth of God's Word inform us of what to actually believe, that will draw us closer to Christ and His promises?
How to Guard Ourselves
I want to encourage you to guard yourselves. There's a couple of ways that we can do that. First is, we need to keep Scripture at the center of our lives. What I mean by this is sometimes we can structure our days and we can say the Bible comes first. Once we get that out of the way, we kind of scribble it off and then we go about the rest of our list. When we do that, when we cross it out, we can often forget about it.
When I say keeping the word at the center of our lives, what I mean is that needs to influence everything else that we do. It's like a hub and all of our different components of our lives coming out as spokes, but they always are influenced by that center of Christ's Word in the Scriptures.
The next thing is we can test everything against God's Word as we keep it at the center. If we hear something that kind of makes us feel a little weird, rather than spending some time googling, maybe first we should spend some time in the word going, does Scripture speak towards this?
I'm going to be honest, there might be some gray areas and that's why our third way that we can guard ourselves is to find people around us that are going to point us back to Jesus. It's good to have these conversations with trusted believers who know God's Word as well, because they might bring some thoughts and ideas that you hadn't seen before. They might pull out some Scriptures that you've never read before, but these are just some ways that we can guard our hearts against some of these empty philosophies and this high-sounding nonsense that is in this world around us.
The next time you hear something that makes you feel a little off, pause and say, is this bringing me closer to Christ? Or is it pulling me away? Then make the choice that keeps you anchored in Christ Jesus, in His truth.
