John 18:37-38
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.  Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

What is truth?  Is it absolute or bendable?  Where does it come from?  Who decides what is true?  Is it God or man?  Do we each have our own truth to discover, or do we have to accept someone else’s?  Our view on truth and whose truth we accept will determine much about the course our life takes.  Pilate found himself in a bit of a conundrum.  He was trying to get to the bottom of this situation and decide who Jesus really was.  In the end, he found no fault in Him, but he sentenced Jesus to death anyway, essentially rejecting His truth.

There is one truth.  There is the truth, and it is the truth that comes from God.  It is the message of God to the world.  It is the truth of His existence in the first place, the truth of His intervention on our behalf and His love for us.  It is the truth of our sin and our need for a Savior and the truth that God Himself would be our Savior.  The things that Jesus taught and said are God’s truth, given to us so we can know it and live by it.

Jesus came to tell only the truth.  And how we respond to His truth determines what our truth will be.  If it is based on God’s, we will believe Him and seek to serve Him and live for Him.  We will be willing to obey His Word and build our lives on it.  We will stand up for it and seek how we can apply it to the situations we face in life.  But if we reject God’s truth for our own or someone else’s, we will face the shaky ground that results from building our lives on a lie.

What is our answer to Pilate’s question?  What do we think truth is?  Jesus gave the answer in the previous chapter.  He said that God’s Word is truth.  It is what we can trust and depend on and use to help us make right decisions in our lives.  Pilate’s determination of truth led him to execute a man he believed to be innocent.  The Pharisees’ version of truth led them to call for the crucifixion of the Son of God.  When we follow our own version of truth, we often end up in a bad place.  But if we’re willing to abide by God’s truth, we have life in Him and the hope of His promises.