"The Truth will set You Free"

John 8:32

I was called to be a salesman, and I spent forty years of my life, learning the art of selling.  Few are born with the gift and I was not one of them, I had to observe, study, train and I was still learning the gift of selling, at the end of my forty years.  In those forty years, I ran across some very talented people who had exceptional abilities, but some of them were lazy and others were void of moral and spiritual values.   They were often very intelligent and gifted in speech and were fun to be around, but without exception, they would lie or deceive the customer; the order was the goal and to them it did not matter how you arrived at the sale.  They had the ability to earn your trust, if they knew the customer was a strong Christian and family man, then they would come to him as a like minded person, if they believed him to be very liberal, then they were also liberal, they were exceptional at deception.

I was always amazed at the salesperson with so much going for them, and yet felt the need to deceive when truth would have earned them the business.  One day I read in the gospel of John were Jesus was encountering some Jews who told him that they did not agree or even believe what He was telling them.  Jesus had made the statement that “the truth will set you free” and they were quick to tell him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.”  Listen to Jesus reply in John 8:44; “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  It was my observation, that truth was not what the salesperson that lied and deceived wanted to hear, any more than these folks Jesus was talking to.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice