One of the best synonyms for truth is reality. If what one believes does not match with reality, then it is not true. Truth then becomes something that can be tested and experienced in everyday life. Saying it another way: False beliefs affect us directly. It is not just a matter of academics and theory. Religious beliefs are more like water to a fish and air to humans. If they are false, we suffer and die. If true, we live. Christianity is about life.

Jesus said, "The thief comes not, but to steal and to kill and to destroy; I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10.) "For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good; let him seek peace and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil." (1 Peter 3:10-12.) Notice how Peter joined a good life with how one lives before God.

God is the author of life; He, therefore, knows how we should live and what is best for us. If we ignore truth, which is God’s Word, then we will be directly affected by it. I hear many speaking about Christianity as if it is just a theory about life, one among many, and another theory is just as good as this one. I want to show that this is not true. I want to show how false beliefs will destroy your life.

Someone has said, "You can put off making up your mind about religion, about God, but you cannot put off making up your life." Some will say that later on they will think about Christianity, but not now. They mistakenly think that it will not affect them in any real way. But life is going on now; you cannot avoid "making up your life." You will live in one way or another, the right or the wrong, the good or the evil.

The Bible teaches that we are the children of God; that is, we are created by the hand of God. Paul preached this view of who we are to the Athenians at Mars Hill.

"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ Hill and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he gives to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from everyone of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of the is ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts 17:22-31.)

This is a remarkable and profound truth that man is the offspring of God. Paul’s point was to rebuke the Athenians for worshipping so many gods that they had craved from stone. If man is the offspring of God, then God is surely more than a statue made of wood or stone by man’s hands. The whole question raised by Paul is the nature of man and God. Knowing who we are and from whence we came is without equal in other questions and pursuits of life. This one must be settled first. If we believe otherwise, different from what the poets at Athens had hinted at and what Paul preached, this false belief will affect your life in its entirety.

I believe that a rejection of the truth that God is our Father and we are his offspring is the reason why so many live the way they do. Someone remarked that if man comes to believe that he descended from apes, we should not be surprised to find him living like the animals! That is how directly and quickly truth or error will impact your life.

Paul’s sermon in Athens is sometimes said to be the second greatest sermon in all of literature---second only to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Those listening on that momentous occasion probably did not think that is was so great a message, much like the response of the news media after Lincoln’s Gettysbury address. But the people of Athens were not prepared to hear these words. They had been taught a serious error.

Athens was filled with idolatry. The landscape was lavishly dotted with artistically designed temples, shrines, statues and altars of great beauty erected to the glory of their many gods and goddesses. The magnificent Parthenon atop the Acropolis was near the center of Athens. Images were built of Apollo, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Bacchus, Neptune, Diana and many others, but the Parthenon was the most impressive of them all. Inside it stood the beautifully-sculptured, gold and ivory image of Athena Parthenos, whose gleaming spear-point, it is said, was visible 40 miles away. Here, surrounded by all these temples and idols and in the shadow of the Parthenon, Paul delivered his sermon about the God the Greeks admittedly did not know.

There is something both interesting and troubling about this setting. Paul is the right man, the man of God, equipped with truth by inspiration, prepared through a spiritual journey of his own. An audience is gathered to hear him, but they did not readily accept his message. Why?

Luke tells us something important about the Athenians: "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing." (17:21.) They loved to talk about a lot of theories of philosophy and religion, but they never settled on anything as being true. They would forebear Paul and let him speak, but they did not intend on taking him too seriously. If you wanted to believe it, you had a right to believe what you wanted. Even in our country, there is apathy about truth. We believe in relativism and pluralism---let each believe what he desires. They are all equal---just ideas and theoretical concepts. People generally fail to look for truth. Paul may have had the Athenians and others in mind when he wrote to Timothy that some were "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." (2 Tim. 3:7.)

The people of Athens had not made up their minds about God, but they could not keep from making up their lives. They were living sinfully---following after both materialism and hedonism.

We must know at least two important things in life before we can proceed. We must know God and who we are. These two are inseparably connected.

Mormons believe that Adam is "the only God with whom we have to do" and that Adam had many wives. Eve was one of his celestial wives. If God (Adam) is a polygamists, then we can practice such! This false belief will affect your marriage immediately and directly. Organizations have been formed to try to assist women who want to escape from the prison of Mormon marriages in Utah. They have to leave the state and began anew elsewhere.

Mohammed taught the absolute supremacy of the man above the woman. The Koran says that the woman is inferior. "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them." (Surah 4:34.) Can you imagine the difficulty when a non-Muslim woman marries a Muslim man? These beliefs will affect their marriage. Television shows have often depicted these real life situations where women tried to escape from the bondage of such marriages.

In less dramatic ways, but just as real, worldly standards that so many embrace affect our marriages. The world teaches so much that is wrong about pleasure and sexuality. It promotes self-fulfillment instead of seeking the good of others. America largely teaches a hedonistic way of life. Pleasure is the ultimate end, the god before whom we bow.

The world teaches that if you are not happy, you should break your marriage vows and seek after personal happiness. We are taught that many marriages, living together before marriage, adultery and now homosexual marriages are good and acceptable alternative lifestyles. Those who follow these false beliefs will find out the hard way that these teachings are wrong and will bring upon people swift, severe consequences.

When Paul encouraged the Ephesians to put on "the whole armor of God," he was really talking about the character of God. Notice that he included such things as truth and righteousness. (Eph. 6:14.) The only real way to defeat Satan is to develop a godly character. Our faith in God is said to be the "victory that overcomes the world."

(1 John 5:4.) Paul described the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, and temperance. (Gal. 5:22-23.)

On the other hand, those who reject God will develop a character void of God. Paul described many who had done just that. (Romans 1:20-32.) They professed that they were so wise that they did not need God. (1:22.) They reduced God to the level of man and animals. (1:23.) But, what we need is to be lifted upward to be more like God. When men reject God, they become ungodly. Their behavior changes because their heart and character have changed. They are filled with unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. (1:29-31.)

It would have been impossible for it to have been otherwise. When men reject God and their godly heritage, they become ungodly. Their character will be unlike the character of God. No one can be like God while rejecting God.

Christianity is the only true religion because it is the only religion that can fashion the heart of man into the likeness of Christ. If one rejects Jesus, one does not know God. Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus saith unto him, "Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" (John 14:8-9.)

The new birth is not just theoretical, but rather it is real. A lost person can be begotten again by the Spirit of God. That does not mean that the person will not wrestle with temptation and sin, but it does mean that the heart has been changed by the Gospel. There is a vast difference between one who loves God and one who does not. There is a recognizable difference between one developing the character of Jesus and one who has rejected Jesus.

The forgiveness of sins is real; the peace that passes understanding can be possessed. This is the reality of Christianity now.

"Blesses is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." (Psalm 32:1-2, Rom. 4:7-8.)