The Power of Truth

Sometimes my musings are a knee-jerk reaction to something I read, other times they take a while to mature, often developing while I am doing some mundane, repetitive task that gives my brain time to wander and reflect. This weekends mundane task was painting the garden fence and whilst doing this I was reflecting on John 18, in particular verse 6. Judas had got together a posse of soldiers, officials, priests and Pharisees to come and arrest Jesus in the garden who when they ask for Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus replies that it is him, "drew back and fell to the ground." So this band of individuals who were "carrying torches, lanterns and weapons" are assaulted when confronted by the words of Jesus. I had been reflecting on this for a day or so asking myself why did they react like this and it came to me, it was the power of the truth. Quite often when I come to a conclusion like this a song comes to mind, music as always paid a huge part in my life and my head is full of thousands of remembered songs from almost every genre, but unusually nothing came to mind. So when I sat down to write this I did some searching on the internet to see if some wise intellectual or philosopher had a profound quote for me to draw upon, surprisingly it was the words of the rapper Ice Cube, who could have been writing himself about his thoughts on the arrest of Jesus in John 18 when he wrote, "Truth is the ultimate power. When the truth comes around, all the lies have to run and hide." It was the truth in Jesus's words, the truth that he is the Son of God, that stopped those people in their tracks. Truth is the way to salvation, we may suffer in this world when we stick to the truth ourselves or stand up for the truth of others, but ultimately it is truth that  leads us to Jesus, and through Jesus, God the Father. Not only in this life, but the life to come. 

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