Will the Truth Set You Free?

While watching the news recently, I heard someone accused of a crime say, “The truth will set me free.”

I hear that line quoted a lot. Almost always with confidence. Almost always without context.

When it comes to influence, words matter, context matters, and so does truth.

Jesus actually said something more precise—and far more demanding:

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Did you catch the conditions?

Jesus wasn’t speaking to the general public. He was speaking to people who already believed in Him—and He tied freedom to abiding in His word. In other words, keep trusting Me, keep living what I teach, and then you will come to know truth in a lived, experiential way.

This wasn’t “truth” as a legal defense.
It wasn’t “truth” as personal validation.
And it certainly wasn’t “my truth.”

It was truth as liberation from enslavement—specifically, enslavement to sin.

That distinction matters, because the kind of truth Jesus talked about doesn’t always feel good. In fact, it often hurts.

The truth doesn’t promise a happy or prosperous life. Quite often, it brings discomfort, loss, and pain. In Jesus’ case, speaking the truth ultimately got Him killed because He threatened the religious power structures of His day.

Closer to home, truth regularly costs us something.

Someone tells you the truth—that something you said or did hurt them. That moment doesn’t feel freeing. If you have a conscience, it probably brings regret or guilt. But it also brings an opportunity: to reflect, to change, to repair.

Or perhaps you discover a relationship isn’t what you believed it was. The truth doesn’t feel liberating in the moment—it feels crushing. Your assumptions collapse and your future has to be reconsidered. Nothing about that feels free. It feels costly.

And yet… it’s still truth.

Scripture is clear—if we read it with an open mind and heart—that all of us fall short of how God calls us to live in light of His goodness and reality. But it’s just as clear that God makes a way back through repentance. Not shame. Not denial. Repentance—a turning from our ways to His. It starts with the willingness to acknowledge that His ways are good and ours often are not.

As I reflected on all of this, two movies came to mind: The Truman Show and The Matrix.

In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey’s character slowly realizes his entire life is a manufactured reality television program. None of it is real. Once he knows that, how could he go back and hug the woman he thought was his mother knowing she was an actress? How could he receive affection from his wife after learning she was playing a role?

The truth didn’t make Truman’s life easier. It shattered his world.

In The Matrix, Neo is offered a choice: take the blue pill and remain comfortably ignorant or take the red pill and see reality as it truly is. He chooses the red pill. The truth opens his eyes—but it also opens his life to suffering, danger, and loss. Ignorance would have been far more comfortable.

Both stories highlight something we often forget; truth doesn’t exist to soothe us; it exists to free us. And freedom, paradoxically, often begins with discomfort.

Misquoting Scripture long predates social media memes. We prefer sound bites because they let us claim the promise of freedom without submitting to the process that produces it.   But when we strip words of their context, we don’t just lose meaning—we distort it.

So maybe the better question isn’t, “Will the truth set me free?”

Maybe it’s this: Am I willing to live in a way that allows the truth to do its work—even when it hurts, costs me something, or changes the story I thought I was living?           

That kind of truth doesn’t flatter us.
But it has the power to transform us and our relationships.

Edited by ChatGPT

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE and a faculty member at the Cialdini Institute.

An author, TEDx speaker, international trainer, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world, Brian was personally trained and endorsed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. His follow-up, Persuasive Selling for Relationship Driven Insurance Agents, was an Amazon new release bestseller. His latest book, The Influencer: Secrets to Success and Happiness, is a business parable designed to teach you how to use influence at home and the office.

Brian’s LinkedIn courses on persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by more than 800,000 people around the world. His TEDx Talk on pre-suasion has more than a million views!