The Empowering Truth

A Christian comedian used to do a routine about a guy witnessing to another fellow. He approaches the man and says, "Have you heard the good news?" The man says, "No. What's the good news?" The guy stutters and stammers for a minute and says, "The good news is ... uh...The good news is...." Finally blurts out, "You're going to hell!" The man pauses and says, "Then what's the bad news?"

There is certainly truth in the fact that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). It is also true that "the wages of sin is death...." (Romans 6:23). But while both of those Scriptures are true, we need to be sure that when we share our story with others that we do not stop with just truth. We need to be certain that we give them the empowering truth.

Steve May describes empowering truth this way: "Suppose I had a cure for baldness. It's painfully obvious that I don't, but let's pretend for a minute that I do. If I were to approach a bald-headed man, and say to him, 'Do you know what your problem is? You're bald!' Would that help him? No. I could even go into great detail about it: 'You're bald, because you have no hair! Your hair has all fallen out. You may try to fool others when you cover your baldness with a hat, but you're not fooling God. He sees your true head.' Everything I have said so far is the truth, but it's not the empowering truth. If that was the extent of my message, no one would get cured of baldness. The empowering truth in this scenario would be to say, 'Sir, I have good news for you. You don't have to be bald-headed any more. If you sprinkle this powder on your head, you will grow hair. I once was bald, but now I comb. It's worked for me, it's worked for thousands of others, and it will work for you, too. I'm holding in my hand the cure. All you have to do is reach out and take it, and your life will never be the same'."

That's what empowering truth does for us. It doesn't just tell us that "the wages of sin is death..."; it also tells us that  "...the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." We are not telling them the obvious..."you're a sinner". We are showing them the empowering truth that there is a way to experience freedom from sins...past, present, and future.

I once heard a maxim that I think is very true. For every minute we spend talking about sin, we should spend five minutes talking about grace. We used to sing it this way, "Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all our sins." Now, that's empowering truth!