Introduction

We live in a world which puts emphasis on "Your Truth", as though there are multiple versions of the Truth.

This usually leads to a lot of confusion, if we ourselves are not sure of what the truth is.

As  young individuals in school, we're constantly bombarded by ideas like

• The normalisation of same sex marriage
• The normalization of gender fluidity
• etc

The issue with these things in our society is they stem from something good, but have been twisted out of shape.

The idea to treat everyone with love and respect is a good principle, however, when you twist it to say in order to love and respect people you need to accept everything they do, it is going too far.

We're going to face many of these situations in our life.

How can we tell what is right from what is wrong? How can we tell what is the Truth?

Is there Truth?

The first question we need to answer is: Is there such a thing as Truth (with a capital 'T')?

Because if there isn't and if everyone can come up with whatever they want then we might as well  just stop here and just go do whatever we want.

However, a world where there is no absolute truth, makes no sense. We can even say it is impossible to exist.

Let's look at the physical world? Is there absolute laws?

Yes. Gravity, the speed of light.

These are absolutes. If you walk off a cliff, it doesn't matter if you believe in Gravity or not, you'll fall.

Imagine we live in a world where Gravity wasn't consistent. Sometimes we fall, sometimes we float up, sometimes we move side to side and everything is random. Do you think we can live in a world like that? I believe, it'll be impossible.

Same applies to morality.

If we look at the Bible we see something interesting. We see a natural law, which was violated, a consequence which resulted from this violation, and a redemptive action which had to be undertaken to restore man.

• Humanity sinned against God, and became infected with sin.
• The wages of sin is death
• God had to take what's ours (the sin) and give us what is his (eternal life)

If there is no absolutes, then none of the above would really matter. 

What is Truth?

We can say then: Truth is a reflection of the Nature of God.

Jesus (God the Son) declares himself as "The Truth".

In order to walk in truth we need to know who God is. We'll talk a bit more about how we can know God, but it really isn't  hard. In fact it's probably something we've heard many, many times.

Why is Truth Important?

Let's ask this first, is it important to know about Gravity? Is it important to know about thermodynamics? These might be big words, but I don't mean to say we need to know how they work, or the physics behind them. But we need to know that Gravity exists, or we'll just be falling down all the time. We need to know that if I put my hand in fire it'll be burnt, or else I'll always be in the hospital getting treated from burn injuries.

In the same way we need to know about God or else we'll be breaking the law of God all the time, and that will to all sorts of no good for us.

Remember, when we talk about the law of God, we're not talking about a random rule God put in place. We're talking about the laws upon which creation was built.

We can liken God to a designer. He designed humanity in a very specific way according to his nature which is the basis of everything. When we start messing up with his creation and using it against the design, we're simply going to ruin it.

For example, if we have a car and the manufacturer of the car says you need to change the oil every 6000km. But you never change the oil. What's going to happen to the car? Yeah, it's going to breakdown.

Is it because the manufacturer punished you? No, it's because you broke the design intent of the car. The car was design to need the oil changed. You just didn't listen to the instructions.

In the same way God doesn't punish us when we do something wrong, but our sin breaks God's design and we end up getting hurt because of that.

Now an interesting thing to note here. Sometimes we might not see the damage rightaway. It might take a long time before we start seeing the damage in the car. The damage is gradual. And when the engine starts making weird noises and smoking, fixing the car becomes a lot more expensive.

Same with our spiritual life, if we don't pay attention to the Truth of God, then we might not see the damage right away, but be sure there will be damage. And by the time we notice it, it might be very expensive, or very hard to fix. But nothing is impossible for God.

All this to highlight why it is important to know the Truth. It's for our own good.

Humanity was designed to rely on God; to have a personal relationship with God. And through this relationship, we get to know God and our ability to discern right from wrong becomes enlightened by His grace.

If we ignore that, then we'll be falling down off cliffs all the time without us knowing it.

How can we attain Truth?

This is a rather simple question to answer, but I think sometimes we look for a complicated answer. But God made it really simple:

1. Know God through the Bible. The Bible is God's revelation about himself to us
2. Know God through the Church. The Church are the different members of the Church. We are the Body of Christ. It is important to stick within the church and have mentors within the church whom we can ask questions and learn from; parents, priests, servants.
3. Know God through personal experience. When we are consistent and persistent in the two points above, it'll be easier for us to see God's work in our life. God is always working, but sometimes we don't have spiritual eyes to see. However, when we are honest and sincere in 1 and 2, by continual practice our eyes will be opened, through the grace of God.
   1. Like working out. Sometimes we don't see the results right away. It's a lot easier to slack off and eat whatever we want, but that'll just get us to an unhealthy state. Working out even when we don't feel any improvements, in the long run will be better for us.

Conclusion

• We started by posing commons situations which we face in school and we asked how can we tell what's right or wrong
• Before we could answer that question we first had to talk about Truth and if it really existed. And we said if there is no absolute truth, then the world we live in will not be even possible.
• We said Truth is the Nature of God; to know God is to know truth. The closer we are to him the clearer our understand of the truth becomes
• We talked about the importance of knowing the truth.

• We finished up with some practical steps to know the Truth.