Committed to the Truth in Love
A few Sundays ago, Pastor Brock preached on “A Love Expressing Church,” which reminded me of the tension that every Bible teaching church experiences. “Should we be a church committed to the truth, or committed to love?”
This “tension” only exists in us as fallen people. For God has designed His church to be committed to “both” the truth AND love. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life…” And He Himself is “full of grace and truth.” Never was there a person who was more committed to the truth and love as Christ was. We exalt Christ because, indeed, He is the perfect example of truth and love. Though we will always fall short of our precious Lord Jesus, as His Church we should strive by the grace of God and the Spirit, to be unabashedly committed to the truth of His Word, and to practicing the truth in love for Him, one another, and for the world with the Gospel of hope.
Such love is neither “wishy washy” nor “superficial.” It is absolutely substantial, and most concerned with the purity of its object. I love Philippians 1:9-11, And this I pray, that your LOVE may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Wow! How this passage defines God’s kind of love is far from the diminished and perverted concept of so called “love” in our world! It is a love that is to be growing (“may abound still more and more”), discerning (“in real knowledge and all discernment”), wise (“so that you may approve the things that are excellent”), sanctifying (“in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ”), and fruitful (“having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.")
Remember the words of our Lord Jesus in the Upper Room, “This I command you, that you love on another” (John 15:17), and the words of the Apostle John, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s good, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in Him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:17-18).
My hope and prayer is that we all might be looking for ways to foster and encourage God’s people to love God, one another, and the world. May we strive to grow in our love for one another, and in so doing, adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.