Have you ever felt you were surrounded by fluff and froth? The hype, the posturing, the flaunted pretenses? Just think, did Jesus have a public relations team? Did Jesus worry about His image and issue press releases? Umm, no.

One of the greatest blessings of being a discipleship Christian is that the Lord strips away the pretension, the falsehood, the insincerity that’s so naturally a part of the landscape of this present world. The Lord has ways of putting us through the fire to burn away the dross and the immense vanity that is the accompanying baggage of virtually every person in this world.

The Lord said He would have us be as children with their guileless innocence and their nearness to the fundamentals of life. But the farther we go in “the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2), the more we take on what Jesus called “leaven” (Luke 12:1). That’s not a word used or understood much anymore but it refers to the yeast that bakers would use back then. The yeast “leavened” the bread. It made it rise and be bigger but it didn’t really add much in the way of substance or nourishment.

The Bible said it so simply 2000 years ago that people get “puffed up”. But when that’s all that you can see anymore, it becomes the new normal, “par for the course” and the emperor’s clothes that everyone is suppose to see. But a few still blurt out that there really isn’t anything there!

I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the pureness and reality that can be found in a life of following the truths of the Bible. As so many poets, song writers and thinkers have said through the generations, this present world is an upside-down, backwards fantasia that we all have to navigate through each day. And it’s a battle for the people of faith as we’re just humans of like passions and can easily succumb to the sirens of Satan that seem to be virtually on every corner and on every web site.

And the funny thing is, nearly everyone is still strangely aware that something is not quite right. So many things have a funny ring to them. Or, like food, you bite into it and you can just tell there is nothing there; no nourishment, no value, just fluff. So I am dumbfounded that somehow the high God has made it so that I can turn back to the truths that were revealed to me when I was 21 years old. I can go back to the Bible verses I memorized at that time and find that they still strongly resonate with me, like dear old friends whose companionship is still as strong and real as it was when I first met them long ago.

To be honest, perhaps all of us of the people of faith get hit with the idea every so often, “I guess I’m a little weird.” Ha! Do you think Moses in Egypt ever thought that? Or Noah before the Flood? I guess that’s the price we have to pay for being “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).

But here’s a thought. Pity the multitudes of pitiful “sheep” in this present world, people who are mingled among the great mass of humanity in these present times but who don’t really know the Lord yet. That was how I was. I was a sheep of God but I didn’t know it. So I tried to run with the wolves and the people who are truly comfortable with the darkness and the valueless vanity of these times.

I just didn’t fit in, although I really tried. I was a sheep of God but I didn’t know it. And there are still multitudes like that now, misfits, “queer” characters who don’t know who they are until somehow the voice of God breaks through to them. It could be someone who shared some snippet of the truth of God with them, some Christian song they heard, some dream they had, something that awakens them out of the present darkness and draws them into the light of God’s truth and love which is what they were actually looking for all along.

But really, how can any of us discern the fluff from solid, tangible truths and realities? For the people of faith, we have the measuring stick of God’s truths in His Word and personal contact with the Spirit of God who can “lead us into all truth” (John 16:13), even in times such as these.

Thankfully there is an alternative to the smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles and façades and charades of these times. There is the blissful resonance of the truth to be found in the Word of God. There is the warmth to be found in the matchless love that the Lord can bring to you through a fellow Christian. Without the truth and reality of the Lord, those of us who are His would not be able to withstand the forces of the insanity that is upon the world at this time.

Perhaps that is why there’s such an increase in suicides and drug use. May the Lord help us all to continue to be His light and salt, to be His hands to reach out to help the immense number of people who are fainting and dying in this time that’s so lacking in truth and flooded with shadows.