When our spiritual life declines, our tendency is to stop advancing in truth and to rest confident in established systems of belief and doctrine, on tradition, and previously uncovered truths. However, this very act, while holding to previous truths (not falsehoods), will eventually cause the decay and decline of spirituality and hardening of hearts.

Why? Because of how reality works.

God is infinite, the infinite source of truth, and those who have entered into a genuine love/trust relationship with Him have hearts like little children, hearts that acknowledge the supremacy of God and their own finite limitations and, therefore, engage in a thriving relationship in which they are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, which means they love growing, advancing, and moving forward with ever-increasing discovery, insights, understanding, comprehension, and experience in truth.

Let me say this clearly: God is infinite. We are finite. We never become God. Therefore, a genuine saving relationship with our Creator means we enter a state of never-ending growth and advancement. Our functional state of existence is defined by perpetual and ongoing growth, development, maturity, and expansion. We never stop learning, never stop advancing, never stop growing in our understanding of truth, reality, for all eternity!  

This is why the Adventist pioneers took the position that we should have no creed except the Bible. Because the Bible is the inspired Word of the infinite God, we cannot plumb the depths of truth it contains. So the pioneers wanted to protect people from the spiritual stagnation, atrophy, and decline that occurs when the “creed” or “fundamental beliefs” move away from the Bible to a codified list of doctrines. By definition, the creed or the list of fundamental doctrines, which very well may be drawn from Scripture and consistent with Scripture, is, in reality, partial, limited, a glimpse of the infinite and, therefore, will always be incomplete.

When we form creeds or a list of fundamental beliefs, we are in danger of developing a mindset that those beliefs are reality, are the full and complete truth, and thereby, we become conservative and fearful of ideas that challenge the official creed. We, under the false belief of being righteous, protecting the standards, standing by the landmarks, actually resist unfolding light that would further develop and/or even replace a previously held but incomplete belief with a more accurate one.

Such a mindset can lead to a sense of “we have the truth” or “this is the truth.” This leads to defensiveness, guardedness, to protect what is currently believed, rather than studying for the next advancement in truth, the next unfolding of heavenly light in our relationship with God. And when that happens, we always encode error; the light within us, the truth we once believed, becomes darkness. Why?

Since God is the infinite source of truth, whenever a creature disconnects from ongoing updates from God and clings to previous understandings to explain new experiences, they will encode error—even when starting out in a sinless state, in a face-to-face relationship with God, as Lucifer did. Lucifer replaced God as the infinite source of truth with himself when, in pride, he made himself the final authority on what is true. But the only possible result for Lucifer was encoding errors, believing lies, ultimately to the point of becoming delusional and thinking he could become like God. (See Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14.)

Finite beings who do not remain connected to God for ongoing downloading, internalizing, assimilating, and encoding unfolding truth will always internalize new events, data, and life experiences incorrectly. The only way we are prevented from corruption, lies, error, and deceit is by a living connection with the source of all truth, anchored in His Word, the 66 books of Scripture. This means we are lovers of truth, not of dogma, doctrine, or creeds. And as truth unfolds, we are able to move forward in it.

Those who are lost in the end are described in the Bible as those who “did not love the truth and thus be saved [healed]” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). It doesn’t say they don’t love their churches, or their creeds, or their doctrines. No, they may, like the Pharisees who crucified Christ, very much love their religious organization and their doctrinal creeds, but what they don’t love is truth, and they refuse the unfolding truth to defend the old landmarks. They don’t keep their hearts sensitive and open to truth that would correct the errors that have been encoded into their hearts and minds. And what is the result of cutting oneself off from unfolding truth? God sets them free and they become delusional—given over to strong delusion to believe a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Why?

How reality works! If you refuse truth, the only thing left for the mind to rest upon is falsehood, and if correcting truth is persistently resisted, one becomes fixed in their false beliefs—and that is the definition of a delusion: a fixed false belief that is resistant to evidence, facts, and truth that would correct it.

And false beliefs cause increased fear, insecurity, and anxiety, because false beliefs are out of harmony with reality, and reality doesn’t change. Thus, individuals who reject truth and cling to lies become ever more hostile to truth. They become critical, judgmental, and controlling, and they work hard to shut down sources of truth. We see this all over the world and, sadly, in the history of the church.

Salvation is possible only through Christ, the Word made flesh, who in love brought us the truth, which we must choose to accept and then choose to trust God and surrender our hearts to Him and be reborn with a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. And when that happens, we begin a new life, a new way of living, with a new focus, with new motives, in a love relationship with our Creator in which we eagerly seek to know Him and His kingdom of truth and love more fully every day.

We are like little children every day going to our heavenly Father and asking, “Why? What? How come?” Life is an exciting, eternal journey of growth, development, and advancement.

So I encourage you to study, think, and grow in God’s eternal kingdom of truth and love.