If it looks good and sounds good …

After a long, hard day at work, and a slow evening in front of the TV, the man couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. He finally dragged himself to bed, where in collapsed into a deep slumber.

A few hours later, the man awoke with a start.

Was that screaming?

Yes! And gunfire?

Yes!

Terrified, he quickly called the police. By the time the officers arrived … Jay Leno was interviewing the actors who played in the scene.

Yes, the man had left his television on when he went to bed. The sounds of violence had come from the television.

This is a true news story reported just a couple days ago. You may feel sorry for the guy for embarrassing himself, but his behavior is a common one. We often react to what is served up to our senses without knowing their basis in truth.

It sounds real. It feels real. So we react. But what often appears to be real is based on falsehoods that, sooner or later, will show themselves to be something other than what we originally thought.

That’s when the failures come on in full force. These falsehoods are incubators of regret and harsh circumstances.

Jesus encouraged us not to react to what looks and sounds right, but to seek the truth and build upon that as the foundation for our lives:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash,” Matthew 7:24-27.

Oh, and what is “truth”?

“Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me,'” John 14:6.

Scotty