Growing in Truth

Joe Reeser is a dear friend of mine. He and his wife, Stacie, launched (and now pastor) Ramp Church Manchester in the United Kingdom. Before that launch, though, Joe led the administrative staff of the Ramp at its headquarters in Hamilton, Alabama. In the weekly staff meetings, Joe would stretch us, challenge us, pastor us, and develop us both individually and organizationally. Those staff meetings were key in my own leadership training.

In one particular meeting, Joe led us through an exercise to identify our personal core values. He explained that a core value is not an aspiration. It is a reality. It’s not something you hope to achieve. It is a description of something that is already in place. For example, my wife, Delana, values honest vulnerability in relationships. That’s not something she wants to arrive at some day. She already values that, and it guides the way she interacts with the world. This core value exercise deeply impacted me, but it didn’t stop with me. Eventually, I took this exercise and collaborated with Joe to identify the core values of the Ramp on a organizational level.

One of the core values of the Ramp is “growing in truth.” Truth is so immense that it can’t be exhausted by the human mind during one lifetime. Truth is eternal, and you will never reach the end of it. No individual can fully probe the depths of truth. It is unfathomable.

This doesn’t mean, though, you can never have certainties. There are certainties and absolutes, but those do not erase the mysteries. God reveals truth to stabilize us, but, at the same time, He conceals truth to beckon us. “Growing in truth” does not mean that truth is subject to change, constantly altering with the trends of time. “Growing in truth” means that humans are subject to change, constantly maturing in perspective. God gives fresh insight not to displace prior understanding, but to enlarge it.

Hunger for revelation is one of the results of this core value at the Ramp. This hunger expresses itself in different ways. One of them is body language. We sit on the edge of our seats, leaning in while the message is being preached. There is an overarching sense that God wants to speak something fresh to us, and when He does, it will change us.

This sense of hunger helps protect your heart from intellectual arrogance. Without it, you’re tempted to feel you’ve arrived at a place of complete understanding. However, if truth is something in which you grow, then you must always remain pliable as the Lord continues to teach.

Jesus Himself told the disciples they didn’t know it all, but they would continue to grow in truth in the future. In John 16:12, Jesus tells them, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth . . . .” If anyone was tempted to feel as though they had intellectually arrived, it must have been the disciples. They spent years walking with Wisdom Himself. However, Jesus taught them to remain humble, knowing God would instruct them further as they were able to handle it.

This core value for the Ramp is also a personal value for me. I want to continue growing in truth as the Holy Spirit leads me. The purpose of my blog is to simply share that journey with you. According to 1 Corinthians 13, each of us know in part. I’d like to share some of my part here so we can continue to grow together.