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What do we think of when we hear the word revelation? About the Holy Spirit showing us some hidden truths in the word of God, perhaps concerning the future? But there is another very common way in which God reveals Himself to us many times during our days, which we may even fail to see! God who is Truth in person, wants to set us free from the falsehood that is in us and which we have nourished for years in our life, and He reveals this truth about us to us a little at a time. What He wants from us when we see what we are really like, as He shows us the sinful ways in which we have been living till then, is that we should acknowledge our reality and ask Him to change us to become like Him. That kind of response to the truth will result in our sanctification and the transformation into the character of Jesus.

In different situations of life we may see how selfish we were, how we were only thinking about what we could gain instead of how we could serve someone, how we tried to impress others with how good we were instead of being willing to see how short we came from doing what Jesus would have done, how difficult we found it even after many years of knowing God's forgiveness to forgive someone else, etc. Isn't that God revealing His truth to us? Instead of humbling ourselves before God, acknowledging our failures and seeking more grace from Him, do we justify ourselves before God, try frantically to pass the blame on to others, excuse our behaviour by downplaying its sinfulness and calling it our human weakness, etc.? If so, we can easily understand why we have been stagnant in our spiritual life even after years of knowing Christ, or even why we have been backsliding.

On the other hand, have we been congratulating ourselves because we have increased in our knowledge of Biblical facts and figures or even that we are able to handle controversial subjects with other denominations? When we put things in this way, it should be simple enough for us to see where we have 'missed the bus' altogether and we have been comforting ourselves with false priorities!

"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (Jn.8:32). What kind of truth have we been running after if it has not really set us free but only puffed us up?

Some preachers have given the impression to people that judging and examining ourselves before God will lead us to condemnation, discouragement, etc., because it is the negative way of legalism. No. Legalism is the attempt to find acceptance from God by keeping the law, but when we have been accepted as children of God as a gift of grace, our present desire to live in a way that is totally pleasing to God has nothing to do with legalism. But it comes from our love and gratitude to God, and leads us closer and closer to Him in the process of sanctification as we respond to the truth God reveals to us from day to day. Let's not allow the devil to deceive us here and keep us away from the truth.

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