Being The Greatest, God supremely is the greatest among all who
claim to speak the truth and ask us to take them at their word (vss.
13,18).  Notice, however, that God carefully gives us reason to believe
Him, knowing full well that we are accustomed to lies and deception.  
Hence, He swears an oath of fidelity and truth to us.  What guarantee do
we have that yet again we are not confronting perjury in the Word of
God?  He swears by Himself, and for this reason the Lord Jesus pointedly
asks, "What greater than God do we require?" (Mt. 23:16-22).

    God is One Who blesses.  Especially, He blesses those who resolutely
trust Him (vs. 14).  Look again at the Genesis account from which verse
14 quotes (Gen 22:1-17).  One cannot think of greater trust in the
veracity of God than that which Abraham exhibited.  In turn, God has
proven true to the word He spoke to Abraham, and He continues in truth
to this very day.

    God is Consolation for all who have been lied to, who have been
wounded unfairly, or who have themselves failed and repented.  For this
reason St. Paul says to the Church at Corinth, "Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of
all comfort; Who comforts us in all our tribulation….For as the
sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds
through Christ" (2 Cor. 1:3-5).

~ from Dynamis for April 2, 2006

OK, I read that first paragraph above and laughed out loud. Yeah, right. That’s such a good "guarantee". Someone swears by himself that he isn’t lying and that we should believe in him! Well, actually, if GOD Himself were indeed standing right here in front of me right now swearing by Himself to me personally, that would be one thing! But no, it is merely words on a page, or someone claiming to speak in God’s name. (Even if the words are in the Bible, if a person is still debating the veracity of the Bible itself, swearing by one’s "self" doesn’t do any good.)

The worst of it is that people who lie about God do more harm than ANYONE else on the planet in my opinion. What could be worse? Tell me truly. Even if they do it unintentionally, can you imagine any greater harm? I can’t.

So those next two paragraphs above are absolutely necessary. A hesitant trust in God and what He (supposedly) says has to be verified. And the foundation of that verification is indeed Blessing and Consolation. The kicker is that God gives us, as part of his veracity, only true blessing, which unfortunately, most of us can’t recognize as such most of the time. We want what we want, not what is truly good for us, not what God, in his Truth, lovingly gives us. So how often it seems that He has failed us and lied to us, when in fact it is we who fail and who have been so deeply wounded by being lied to and deceived about what we do want, that we cannot see Truth and Blessing when it does appear.