Day 18: Let Truth Pick Up the Brush
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” John 17:17 NKJV
“You cannot change a wrong picture with another opinion. You change it by giving the brush to truth and allowing God’s Word to paint something new.” — Dr. Daniel LeBlanc
Let Truth Pick Up the Brush
Yesterday we learned to interrupt the wrong picture, but we cannot stop there. If we remove a wrong picture without replacing it with truth, the old picture will eventually try to return. God does not simply want to empty our minds of lies. He wants to fill our hearts with His truth.
Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” John 17:17 NKJV. Notice that Jesus did not say God’s Word contains truth. He said His Word is truth. That gives us something solid to stand on when our feelings, circumstances, memories, or the voices around us are telling us something different.
Feelings can be powerful, but feelings are not always truthful. In fact, our feelings can sometimes lie to us. You can feel rejected when you are deeply loved, feel hopeless when God is already making a way, or feel defeated when God calls you more than a conqueror. Feelings are real, but they were never meant to have the final word.
Circumstances can be just as convincing. What you see with your natural eyes may be real, but it is not necessarily the whole picture. Even something you have believed about yourself for most of your life can be wrong if it contradicts what God has said.
This is why changing the picture requires more than saying, “I am not going to think that anymore.” We have to discover what God says and deliberately allow His truth to replace what we have believed.
Maybe you have spent years seeing yourself as rejected because someone walked away from you. The rejection may have been real, and the pain may have been deep, but rejection does not have the right to become your identity. God says you are “accepted in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:6 NKJV.
Maybe your past keeps telling you that you are damaged beyond repair. God’s Word says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV. Your history may explain where some of your old pictures came from, but your history does not have the authority to tell you who you are now.
This is where truth has to pick up the brush. For years you may have allowed failure, fear, rejection, pain, or other people’s opinions to paint the picture. Maybe even religion painted a picture of God that made Him seem distant, angry, and impossible to please. Now it is time to let the Word of God tell you what is true.
The Holy Spirit takes the written Word and makes it alive within us. What begins as words we read on a page becomes revelation in our hearts, and that revelation begins changing the picture we see within ourselves.
This does not usually happen because we read a Scripture one time and move on. Some wrong pictures have been rehearsed for years, so we must intentionally meditate on what God has said until His truth becomes greater within us than the lie we have continually rehearsed.
Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The more you hear the truth, speak the truth, meditate upon the truth, and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth, the more clearly a God Imagination begins forming within you.
Suppose fear has painted a picture of your future filled with disaster. Do not simply say, “I refuse to be afraid.” Begin filling your imagination with the faithfulness of God. Remember what He has already done, meditate on what He has promised, and begin seeing your future with God in it.
That changes the entire picture because fear always tries to show you a future where God is absent. Truth puts God back into the picture. Fear asks, “What if everything goes wrong?” Faith answers, “Whatever comes, God will be with me. His Word will remain true, and He will give me what I need.”
Changing the picture is not pretending something is true because we desperately want it to be true. God Imagination begins with what God has actually said. We are not giving our imagination authority over the Word. We are giving the Word authority over our imagination.
There is a tremendous difference between fantasy and faith. Fantasy begins with what I want to be true, while faith begins with what God has revealed to be true. God Imagination is not trying to convince God to agree with my picture. It is allowing His Word to change my picture until I agree with Him.
Today, think about one wrong picture that has been trying to define you. Do not merely reject it and leave an empty space. Find what God has said about it, meditate on His Word, speak His truth, and give the Holy Spirit something from the Word to paint upon the canvas of your heart.
Fear, failure, pain, and other voices have held the brush long enough. Let truth pick up the brush and allow God’s Word to show you what He sees. The more clearly His truth fills your heart, the less room there will be for the old picture to remain.
Prayer
Father, Your Word is truth. Show me every place where I have allowed feelings, circumstances, pain, fear, failure, or the opinions of others to paint a picture that contradicts what You have said. Holy Spirit, take the Word and make it alive within me. Help me replace every lie with truth and every evil imagination with a God Imagination. I give Your Word authority over what I continually behold. Amen.
Today’s God Imagination
God’s Word is truth, and His truth has authority over my imagination. I will not allow fear, failure, rejection, pain, or my past to hold the brush. I choose to meditate upon what God has said and allow the Holy Spirit to paint His truth within me. The old picture is changing because truth has picked up the brush.
