2 Timothy 4:1-4

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Three Myths We Believe

Myth #1: “Live Your Truth”

Judges 17:6

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Hebrews 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Numbers 23:19

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

John 17:17

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

John 17:3

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Myth #2: “Follow Your Heart”

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Matthew 15:19

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

John 14:1

Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

Myth #3: God Just Wants You to Be Happy

“Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When we obey God, we are not doing it for God…We are doing it for ourselves. Because God takes pleasure when we are happy. That’s the thing that gives him the greatest joy.” (Victoria Osteen)

2 Corinthians 11:24-28

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

1 Peter 1:15-16

But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

John 16:24

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Turning to the Truth

1. Learn the truth

2. Discern what is false

Colossians 2:8

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Acts 17:10-11

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

3. Turn from the world

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.