John 8:31-32 MSG

So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, “If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.

I want us to use some of the tools that I’ve introduced to you in the past couple of blogs. Ask questions. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Look up cross references and do word studies. Here we go with the rest of the verse. I’ll try to wrap it up today but I’m not promising!

The definition of truth is “reality; the unveiled reality lying at the basis of and agreeing with an appearance” (quoted from The Complete Word Study Dictionary – New Testament by Spiros Zodhiates). Even the dictionary says that truth is “the true or actual state of a matter” (quoted from www.dictionary.com). Notice that the verse doesn’t say “a truth” or “some truth” but “the truth,” “the reality.” There can be no room for delusion or deception. It’s not even about knowing what is true. It’s about living, dwelling, abiding in the words of Christ. Seeing the truths of God as your reality and living by them. Seeing God revealed in Christ. You see, when we refuse to accept our life and turn to delusion and deception we are turning away from God and His truth. He IS truth and cannot in any way be associated with a lie (John 14:6). In fact the scripture tells us that Satan is “the Father of lies.” Want out of the delusion/lies that you might be living in or that have been told to you about yourself? Saturate yourself in the truth of God’s word. Live there, take up residence there, accept the truth of your life and live there. God will meet you there and set you free!!

So, if by abiding in His words we know the truth/reality, we will be set free. But free from what? The word free means “to liberate from the power and punishment of sin, the result of redemption” (quoted from The Complete Word Study Dictionary – New Testament by Spiros Zodhiates). Well that’s pretty loaded, huh? So to apply this to our life today that means that if we make our home in the words of Christ then we’ll know the truth/reality of the revelation of God for and in our lives and we’ll be free from the power of all of the sin that has kept us in bondage as well as its punishment. Whew! Did you know all of that was in those 2 little verses? Do you see how asking questions unlocks God’s word to us? Amazing!

Let’s put all of this together now. We’ll draw from last week’s post also. There are three things:

(1) “abide in My word,”

(2) “you will know the truth,”

(3) “the truth will make you free.”

You cannot change this order. Celebrate your freedom with someone today!! I’d love a comment to this post if it spoke to you. These have been HUGE in my own life.

For Felicia’s other posts in this series see