1 Corinthians 13:6b but rejoiceth in the truth;

Do you like being right? Don’t you take pleasure in knowing the truth of a matter? I know I try to be right about those things I believe. It is no fun being wrong.

Do you take pleasure in proving someone wrong? Be honest. Are you quick to correct? Do you hold your tongue and wait to see if perhaps that person misspoke and auto corrects himself? Even if they do not, do you talk to them in private about what you heard?

What if I were to tell you that this opening verse has nothing to do with what I just said?

John 14:6b I am the way, the truth, and the life:

Jesus is Truth.

Rejoice being in Christ.

What we call truth is really perception. We take what we sense and collect them into a device called a brain. Witnesses have been proven wrong in what they perceived to be a crime. Memory is a fallible commodity. Recollection is an imperfect science. Even if you study an issue or item to exhaust all possible known evidence, there is the unknown, which exists without observation.

But truth is a person, not just any person, but God Himself, infallible, perfect and pure.

To know a truth as revealed by God is wondrous, pure joy. But only for that moment, and then we store it away in that most imperfect of storage containers, the brain.

1 Corinthians 8:2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.

And that’s the truth. (Jesus is the Word)

1 Corinthians 13:6a Rejoiceth not in iniquity

Have you ever been glad to see that certain person get caught doing what you suspected all the time? Most of the time it is a big splash on the television news, maybe in a newspaper, but never discovered by a gossip. What, wait, a gossip brought you the news?

How did you come to be comfortable with this secret knowledge that you had confidence of guilt? If you depend on the old adage that where there is smoke there is fire, it just might be that someone is blowing smoke.

Celebrity is fair game in this world. Everyone loves to speculate about how unperfect their life really is compared to the publicist’s spin. After all the rich can afford someone to paint their landscape. But what about the common man? How about your acquaintances, perhaps friends and relatives? Do they deserve privacy?

It doesn’t make us a better person to see others fall. If we take pleasure in it, that makes us less than we should be. But without it where would all those scandal sheets at the checkout stand be? Ground up and recycled would be the best place.

Oh, did I get this wrong? Do you think that rejoicing in sin is about taking pleasure in our own sin?

If you are thinking along those lines allow me to point out something that should be obvious.

If you can take pleasure in sin, you have a bigger problem than sin.

You are not in Christ.