There is a side of truth to choose:

                                         
                                    " Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”




20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message." "in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God."

                                     38 “What is truth
     

     There is a side to choose to be on , there always will be.  From our earliest times as a child we are taught from the beginning to "choose up."  Borrowing a phrase from baseball we choose exactly where and when, how and why we make the decisions we do.  (I was sometimes the last to pe picked for a team!)
So even with weighty issues facing us we always have a choice to make.
     Making a choice in the name of religion seems to be the heavy. And in doing so we align ourselves on a side of "righteousness" that may or may not be correct!  Pilate was forced to make a deliberation on the fate of Jesus. His famous "What is truth" still rings out to us and remains to this day a line for posterity.  Saved for us to possibly mull over for ourselves what this means.
     Peter out of fear for his life denied Jesus rather quickly in the midst of those who were prepared to judge him and judge him harshly.  He knew there was murder in the hearts of those who were questioning Jesus.  Jesus told them so many times over and he had just finished telling his disciples that they would also be persecuted.  "No servant is greater than his master."  So they were warned.  Are we also warned today?  Do these words still ring true? Or are we numb to these words after all these years? 
    Do we even know any more what is the side of truth to be on?  Take the Jihadists', they kill for the belief that they are doing "God a Favor." as Jesus predicted.So there is no second guessing their motives and that makes fighting them so difficult and hard to eradicate. There will always be converts to a side.  The twenty-something American who blew himself up two weeks ago was led very far astray  and believed a lie. Why? It is because the Prince of this world whom Jesus defeated...blinded him and twisted the truth along with all those who cannot see.  
    We only have a victory over these types of things when we believe that Jesus did indeed defeat and overcome the world,  If we do not embrace this then there is absolutely no power in anything we do.  " Without me Ye can do nothing." Quoted from the word.  So if we choose sides on "issues" then we align ourselves with that issue whether right or wrong. Some of these issues are benign some are not. We make the choice.
     So if we can believe the words of Jesus even today then we can be assured we have aligned ourself with" the side of truth."
     The evidence is overwhelming that the Man Jesus did indeed exist and is written about in history as well as those men and women entrusted with the good news of the Gospel.  They were eye witnesses of those times and events and we can entrust ourselves to believe in.The choice is then ours to make. Unfortunately so many times I am afraid the message is lost in some of the ways it is presentd to us. There was a happening after the Jewish Pentecost. 
The outouring of the Holy Spirit given to those who belived in the "Name of Jesus." Jesus had been taken away and was no longer seen.  His death on the cross all but gave the certainty that death prevailed once again.But the evidence of the Holy Spirit in the Disciples overuled that death and all but proved that Jesus rose again and poured out the "Advocate" (or one who is for us) on our behalf.  Those who do not believe in infilling and the new language of tongues as evidenced by the speaking of it deny the power of the Spirit given.  This was simply "Immanuel" God with us playing out before our very eyes.  It is not an arrogance to hold this stance of belief. It only becomes so when others use it to brow beat doctrines into others and make it hard for those to come to know the mercy of the one who gives it out of love. It was to be  a helper and a reminder of Jesus himself (poured into us) and all that he did for those who began a new labor in the birth of the Church, Paul, Peter John and all the others who lost their lives...executed  by those ...".doing a service to God"