The Bible,
the best-selling book ever, has been translated in entirety into more than 635
languages. The New Testament has been translated into more than 1,440
languages. The Bible is comprised of 66 separate “books” – 39 in the Old Testament
and 27 in the New Testament – with nearly 3,000 languages having at least one
of those books. But these statistics pale in comparison to the astonishing
array of facts, truths, teachings and principles presented in the Bible, all believed
to have been written and compiled under the inspiration of God.
With that
in mind, if someone were to ask, “What’s the most amazing fact in the Bible?”
how would you respond?
One might
be tempted to reply, “Where do I start? There are so many things that we could
cite.” But recently, reading a book about the early history of CBMC – a ministry
to business and professional men – I came across a statement that caused me to nod
in agreement, “Yes, that is the most
amazing fact in the Bible.” What is it? I won’t keep you in suspense for long.
In the book
was the story of Waldo Yeager of Toledo, Ohio, one of CBMC’s early leaders. He
had written a gospel tract called “Life’s Most Amazing Fact,” and was explaining
to another leader in his city what that “fact” was.
Yeager
proceeded to acknowledge that in their community he would have been widely considered
“a good sort of fellow, an average businessman at least, a good husband and
father. But people don’t really know me. My wife and my two boys know me a
little better than you do, and they are quite charitable with me…. But you
know, even they don’t really know me.”
Then he
concluded, “There’s only one Person who really does know me, and that’s God
Himself. He knows all about me, my weaknesses, the myriad things I would not
dare to expose, even to my own family. Yes, He knows all about me, and here’s the amazing fact – He still loves me!”
That, in the
proverbial nutshell, is the most amazing fact in the Bible. God, the holy, all-knowing,
omnipresent deity that many of us worship, knows each one of us – faults,
imperfections, sins and all – and still loves us. That’s truly justifies the
adjective, amazing.
Most of us do
reasonably well at maintaining a good front. We like people to think highly of us,
and have become skilled at showing our most favorable side – unless, of course,
someone really ticks us off, in which case our facades come down. We want folks
to say of us, “He’s a good guy,” or “She’s a nice woman.” But in the presence
of God – which is all the time – He knows us as we really are on the inside.
As King
David wrote, “Where can I go from your
Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are
there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of
the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will
guide me, your right hand will hold me fast…. Search me, O God, and know my
heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:7-24).
Elsewhere
in the Scriptures, we’re reminded, “There
is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). From childhood, we begin
cultivating the skill of acting as if we have it all together, even when we don’t.
No sense letting people see us at our worst, right? As Abraham Lincoln once
said, we can fool all the people some of the time.
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