Abundant Life Episode 36 In this episode Saso and Ben discuss the topic of truth. Websters 1828 Truth - Conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or has been, or shall be. The truth of history constitutes its whole value. We rely on the truth of the scriptural prophecies. Key verse He is the origin of truth John 1:17 If you follow the news on TV or maybe on Social Media, you are likely constantly wondering whether or not you are consuming truth or lies. In fact it was just a couple years ago that we had a new term coined, fake news which was in effort to call out mainstream news media who are interested in reporting anything but the truth. Then you had so called fact checkers that were checking to see if what people were posting was true or not, but in the end it was admitted that it wasn’t necessarily truth they were seeking but opinion being construed as truth. Needless to say we are in a society where people are extremely confused and starving for truth. We live in a post modern world where some will say that there is no absolute truth, and ironically they’ve just made an absolute truth statement. Then you have the philosophy of relativism which defines truth as being relative and that everyone can have their own truth. For example you have some that will say that it is all right to believe what you want, as long as you do not try to impose your beliefs on others. But this view itself is a belief about what is right and wrong, and those who hold this view most certainly try to impose it on others. In a recent study by Barna, they asked different people groups to respond to various statements by whether or not they agree with the statement. Here are 2 different statements that were asked to “practicing christians”. Whatever is right for your life or works best for you is the only truth you can know. (40% agree) Every culture must determine what is acceptable morality for its people. (47% agree There were other people groups that were surveyed like boomers, gen-exers etc, but the fact that practicing Christians would think that truth is relative or that you can get your morality defined by culture is very concerning. Thankfully we have the truth of the Bible which came from source of truth, God who is truth. God doesn’t just speak truth, His character is the mere definition of truth. Without truth we wouldn’t be able to know God, morality would basically be non-existent and we’d be in a much bigger mess than we are currently. Because we have this truth, we can know God, we can know what sin is, we can know what righteousness is and how to live or lives accordingly. Redemptive purposes John 14:6 John 8:32 John 18:37-38 1 John 5:20 The truth about salvation is so critical because it literally determines life or death as your eternal destination. Sanctification purposes John 17:17 2 Timothy 2:15 Ephesians 6:14 Psalm 25:5 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Psalm 86:11 Philippians 4:8  Psalms 43:3 John 14:17 1 John 1:6 The Christian walk is not easy by any means, but without truth, we’d be absolutely lost. Interestingly when reading about the armor of God, the belt of truth is the first item of armor applied and it would seem that truth is the foundation for the Christian life. Without the belt of truth the rest of the armor would be irrelevant because we would then be what Paul described in Ephesians. Ephesians 4:14 The spiritual battle is not fought in the physical, but in the spiritual, in our minds. If you think about the filth we fill our minds with, the lies and deceptions of this world, its so wonder that we struggle with unbelief. Unbelief was what Adam and Eve experienced in the garden when they chose to believe the lie of Satan over the truth of God and therefore sent the human race into sin. The apostle Paul talks about judgement for those who chose to suppress the truth and believe the lie. Romans 1:18 Romans 1:26 What about you Christian?