The Truth will set you free.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
We all are looking for the truth. Some find it in philosophy while others find it in religion. Some people find it in their political affiliation and some find it in their financial strategy. Success in all these areas represent what they believe is truth. “If it works then it must be truth?” The problem with all of these is that none of these avenues has the “Truth.” You might be shocked to read this especially if you are a Christian. Does religion not have the truth? The question you need to answer first of all is this: If what you believe were not the truth would you like to know about it?
More atrocities have been committed in the name of truth than anything else. The Crusades that was happening during the middle ages was because people were thinking that they have the truth. Today radical Islam is committing various kinds of terroristic acts in the name of what they believe is the truth. Everyone that does not see it his or her way or believe it his or her way is an infidel. We have the same in many denominations. If you see things different or believe things different then you are ostracized from them and treated like an outcast.
Jesus experienced the same thing in his day. He did it differently than they did it and was ostracized for it. The religious folk like the Pharisees and the Sadducees questioned him to try and prove that he did not believe the right thing. They had the truth and everyone else was wrong. This has been around for a very long time.
I am so glad that God is the only one that has the full understanding of what the truth is. You see the truth is never something you believe in. The Truth is a person and His name is Jesus. He stated it very clearly. Because we are incapable of fully understanding something, as we continually learn, we cannot make truth something you understand. As we are ever learning we end up with less than the truth if it was something to understand. We learn as we go. So God eliminated the possibility for truth to be an understanding of something. If understanding something is the truth then we all have different levels of understanding the truth. Jesus said we would know the truth and the truth would set us free. If the truth equals your understanding and truth is suppose to set you free, and we are real and honest with ourselves then we are all pretty much in a lot of bondage because we are limited by our understanding!
The second point I need to make is that there is difference between what is true and what is truth. What is true is not always true. It is true that Abraham said that Sarah was his sister. The truth was that she was his wife. When the king took her to be his concubine God spoke to him through a dream. The truth had to be greater than what was simply true. The truth is always greater than what seems to be just true. God cannot lie and he is the truth. God is bigger than anything else. Truth is greater than anything else. The king sends Sarah back to Abraham fearing for his life. You might think I am playing with semantics here. Not at all! The problem is that we are treating what is true as if it is the truth. That has cost us more in life than anything else. Because we are looking for the truth we will take the truth we believe as the measurement. We will judge all things by what we understand as truth. Most of the time we put our trust in something that is inferior to the truth itself.
What we believe to be truth we call facts. Facts are not truth. It is a fact that you are feeling sick. The truth is that Jesus can heal you. Who is greater? The sickness or Jesus? Remember that truth is always greater than what is true or what is a fact. It was a fact that Lazarus was dead. The truth however was that Jesus who is the life of God was about to show up and give life to a dead body. Before Jesus raised him from the dead they believed that death was final. After he was resurrected they knew that death was a fact and true but it was not truth. Truth was that life was greater. After Lazarus’ encounter with death what do you think he would answer if you had to ask him who is greater, death or life, fact or Truth.
When Jesus said that He is the truth God made the concept of truth exclusive. Nothing else or no one else can claim to have it or know it unless they know Him. Everything that you have ever experienced whether good or bad, if it was not Jesus though it might be true it is not the truth.
Again I want to emphasize that I am not playing with words. It is time to inspect ansee what we believe truth is. Jesus embodies that concept and if it is not him it might be true but it can never be the truth!
