True Love Speaks:
Why We Can ' t Stay Silent in a Culture of Confusion By Lisa Bevere
Walk into most churches nowadays and you will likely hear a message of love, hope, encouragement, and identity. And all that is good and well. After decades of overly harsh messages, the pendulum has naturally swung to the other side— but have we swung it too far? Are we so set on being seekerfriendly that we neglect what it means to be a true friend to those walking through our doors?
The mistake we made in previous decades was to tell the truth in ways that weren’ t always loving. The answer to this is not to shrink back from speaking truth. It is to learn to speak the truth in love.
Jesus was certainly a friend of sinners— and we should be too— but it’ s time we reassess what being a friend actually looks like. I don’ t know about you, but I, for one, expect my friends to tell me the truth. I don’ t want them to bash me over the head with it, but I do want them to tell me the things I need to hear in a loving way.
We’ ve all been given truth without love at times. It doesn’ t feel good. Truth without love is mean— but love without truth is meaningless. We need both. And when we look at Jesus, we see these two qualities on full display. He is the God who so loved the world, the One who is Himself the very nature of love, yet He is also the truth( John 14:6).
Consider the example of the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8.
She is exposed in her sin and is surrounded by her self-righteous accusers who want to stone her. Most of us know the story. Jesus reaches down and writes something mysterious in the sand. Then he stands up and says to those condemning her,“ Let any one of you who is without sin be the
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