Life’s Number One Goal

“When it’s all been said and done,

There is just one thing that matters,

Did I do my best to live for truth?

Did I live my life for you?”

~Robin Mark, When It’s All Been Said and Done

The compulsion to live for truth must surely be the greatest of God’s blessings.

Fired from within, the instinct of conscience employs faith as we go out in truth beyond many temptations to self-protect out of fear.

This done, the truth becomes more important to us than fleeting comforts, because we have the faith that siding with the truth will avail the supreme comfort—salvation. Living for truth does justice regarding to the price of our salvation. It cost our Saviour his life to save us. And we were saved to live for God.

No Fear?

It has become popular, in contemporary times, to advocate a “no fear” approach to life. But just how do we achieve it?

The answer is simple.

We live for truth—always with no conscious exceptions. The dream-life of self-actualisation, or transcending the old self or defeating the flesh, is also available when we live for truth alone. All our decisions, and, inevitably all our thinking, becomes driven by the need to align to reality.

The best of disciples takes up their cross, by abiding against partiality and for truth. When the disciple of Jesus does this they weed out fear and have every part of wisdom, for wisdom is contingent on truth; as, also, truth is the vehicle for operant faith.

So, if we really want to live fearlessly we may find that following Jesus is the only way. Living for Jesus is living for truth. Picking up our crosses is just that; the most fervent commitment to truth we can imagine.

The Very Best of Life

Life’s number one goal—to live for truth—is not only what is required of us in obeying God, but it also goes toward giving us the very best of life, as life eventually works out.

When we have nothing more to fear other than having a holy respect for reality, we are poised for the very best of life. It obviously takes faith to believe in advance of the blessings. To take truth so seriously, and to be accountable to it, is the very best protection against the woes of life. Think of being beyond temptation, not that we ever will be. But as we commit to living as truthfully as possible modern temptations don’t have the lustre they used to have. We become more cemented in living for the applause of only One.

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The best of life is achieved when we live for truth. We substitute compromise for commitment. We swap haughtiness for humility. We exchange selfish doggedness for dependence on God.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.