Clergy view

Jesus was the God-inspired messenger of truth for all time. His powerful message to us was, "Ye shall know truth, and the truth shall make you free."

When Jesus spoke these words, he must have reasoned that truth and freedom went hand in hand. Deliberately, he didn't say "will make," or "could make," or even "should make," but clearly stated for all time that truth shall make you free.

To me this means right here and now, truth, on any given subject, shall free me to find my freedom from bondage of any kind. Yet I find often that confusion challenges my right to understand. I question why those who have a right to be free are fighting daily, hourly and sometimes minute by minute for the very right to exist.

The dictionary explains freedom to mean the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in choice of action. Freedom generally means liberation from an enslaving or restricting form of power. I believe it is our divine responsibility to know this truth that shall free us.

It appears that life itself demands freedom to secure our very existence and the quality of our futures. The law, which links the ages in the demonstration of the ever-present Christ, is truth, and this law stands fully revealed for all men to understand.

The biblical character Paul was an example of someone who became spiritually minded enough and understood God sufficiently to envision his complete freedom. His experience emphasized the fact that power and action are spiritual, enlightening and constructive, for he did not find God in prejudiced pursuits or in misguided beliefs of what he thought to be true, but in the still, small voice of Truth.

Later, when Paul spoke to the Jews in Jerusalem, he declared what he had learned on that fateful road to Damascus. He spoke of how he had lived in darkness, by persecuting Christians and even ordering the brutal death of their beloved brother, Stephen. He confessed that he had done these deeds in ignorance, however well intended.

He went on to explain how, in the very act of murderous intentions, a light came upon him and blinded him to all he held sacred and had committed his life to fight for. In the midst of that light came a message questioning why he chose to persecute, enslave and restrict a life not his own. He was asked why he chose to "kick against the pricks," or leadings of Christ.

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

With this thought provoking question, Saul was transformed to Paul, and was thus liberated and set free. Paul no longer wished to resist the eternal law that sets order to wrong thinking. Though Paul went on to be physically imprisoned, he never lost the freedom that moment of truth had given him. Truth is a deep and profound search, and freedom can become clouded by its individualized perception. Saul's truth was obviously not Paul's truth, yet Paul was free and Saul was not.

Paul's conversation and his continued ability to triumph over adverse circumstances were far more than mere personal virtues open to change; they constituted, rather, the final yielding to divine law. Spiritual truth is the vision of spiritual reality taking form and shape in our lives. Wars can cease, suffering can end and man can claim his birthright to freedom. Every person can have a vision sufficiently clear to dispel the illusion of darkness and reveal to them the presence of eternal truth.

We have a choice. The same choice Paul and countless others have made, to accept the light of understanding. We can all be free right here and now, by banishing enslaving thoughts. We can embrace each other and let the "scales fall from our eyes," so we may see.

God empowered man to understand truth, and truth is the key to freedom. Paul concluded in Galatians by stating, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

We can listen to Jesus as Paul once did and discover that, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."