How Truth Works
What does it mean the truth can set people free?
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
John 8:31-32 (ESV)
Imagine you are in a pitch-black room.
You are standing, but you have no idea what is in this room with you. Your eyes are useless, but your ears are working well.
Someone says, "I can help you find the door out of this room."
You say, "I'm listening."
"Right in front of you there is the back of a large cloth-covered chair. Reach out and touch it."
You reach out, and just as the voice said, you feel the back of an object that could be a chair and the texture is cloth.
"Okay," you say, " I have found the back of the chair. What do I do now?"
The voice then tells you to side-step to the right two steps and stick your arm out to the side. It tells you that you will touch one of the walls of the room.
You do as the voice says and find the wall.
Now if the voice continues telling you the truth, you will eventually find the door and exit the room, because that was the promise. Truth telling and promise keeping are the same thing.
But what if the voice does not tell you the complete truth?
What if, once in a while, it walks you into a cactus or over a hole?
Then I’m positive your life, starting with your emotions, will dramatically change. Your inner world will shrivel and your pleasant connection with the outside world will cease. Thousands of animal studies in psychology have demonstrated this. Do you want to enslave people and make them sick? Just keep feeding them falsehoods.
The truth sets us free by bypassing the nightmares we feed ourselves whenever we lose trust or contact with reality. Truth and reality are also the same thing.
Confidence, happiness, joy, and peace are all the products of God’s truth shining in our lives. This is why it is important to spend time studying Jesus’s life and words, because he promises us that when we do, it will set us free.