John 8:32-34

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."
John 8:32-34


This whole idea of truth and freedom going together is a popular one, and the first verse of this passage has been wrongly used in several places that I know of, and I am sure in many that I don't, to justify sin, when it was written to plead against it.  So, we obviously have widely differing ideas of what "truth" is.  Interestingly, a few verses before this Christ says "he that sent me is true" ... at least offering us a view of where Christ's idea of truth was coming from.  Christ's idea of truth has to be the *real* truth, but there is also some popular sentiment out there that truth is relative to the individual, and that you have to "find your own truth."  No wonder Joseph Smith so long ago said that "the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passage of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible."
Fortunately, we have these other two verses to help us, plus a lot of modern revelation.  When his followers asked him for clarification about becoming free, when in their eyes they already were, he told them that whoever committeth sin is the servant of sin... so the freedom that Christ is talking about here is freedom from the bondage of sin, which we can have if we know the truth.  I think this is really interesting, and one of my friends and I were talking about it yesterday.  We know that sinning gives us a dark cloud over our lives and our souls... so why do we choose that?  It seems crazy. :)  To choose darkness and bondage when God offers us light and freedom.
When we realize this, this truth, that sin is dark and God is light... that sin is our captor and Christ is our Savior, then we are in a measure free.  Free from our own delusions and the bizarre opinions of the world that drive us father into captivity.  We want freedom, so we need truth... and we know that there is more of it than this realization.  Where can we find it?  Well, Christ's reference to his father being true gives us one clue... we can go to God.  He is truth, and will dispense his wisdom to us as we prayerfully and sincerely ask for it.  It worked for Joseph Smith, it can work for each of us.  We cage ourselves too often through our choices.  Let's choose freedom instead of captivity... God's eternal truth rather than our malleable stand-in.