Speaking truth in love
Love for others is a biblical imperative and a Christian ideal. The whole concept that God is love is rooted in these verses below. “Speaking the truth in love”, Ephesians 4:15, is the resultant dialogue God identifies in His Word for us in our communication with one another.
“7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” lJohn 4:7-12
Such love reflected in our treatment of others cannot be manufactured or marketed by you and me. It flows naturally from a life inhabited by the Holy Spirit. It is a fruit or by-product of the Holy Spirit’s inner presence and our submission to His divine power at work within us--literally doing for us what we could not do independent of Him.
“Speaking the truth in love” is a mandate for every Christ-follower. When we offer correction, when we critique current events, when we confront evil, when we “characterize” our detractors--we should always do so in a civil and respectful way, recognizing the dignity and worth of every human being in God’s sight. There are ways to deliver our message without unbridled anger, without verbal demeaning, without name-calling, without character assassination, without vitriolic dismissiveness.
The words of scripture in these instances seem idyllic, “polyannish”, unrealistic, and, by our own personal calculations, impossible to execute.
We need help. God has equipped us as Christ-followers with His resources to speak the truth in love.
The consequences of the blatant failure to even attempt this are visible in the wasteland of partisan politics, broken marriages, and, sadly, in divided churches.
What if the voices raised in the political arena, in the privacy of our homes and families, in the sanctuary of our churches were to be those sharing the truth and speaking it in love and respect for one another?
Something to think about
Something to pray for
Something for me to commit to as a Christ-follower