Truth without Love is cruel. Love without Truth is Condescending.
Truth and love go hand-in-hand. Any attempt to separate love from truth or truth from love results in painful relational damage. Genuine expressions of love are truthful and genuine expressions of truth are loving. God is love and God is truth…God is truth and God is love. Attempts to express love without truth or truth without love are severely lacking and provide a false view of God.
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8 NIV)
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 NIV)
“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15 NIV)
Truth without love is cruel.
Our culture has a weird relationship with truth. We abuse people with the truth instead of blessing people with the truth. We say things like “the truth hurts.” The truth can hurt, but it certainly doesn’t have to hurt. Truth shared in love heals more than it hurts, encourages more than it condemns, and builds up more than it destroys.
Be careful with the truth. Be wise with the truth. Be respectful with the truth. Be loving with the truth.
Being reckless with the truth is foolish, mean-spirited, and antichrist. Consider the exclusive claim of Christ found in John 14:6. Jesus said, “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus’ exclusive claim is true and loving, because the context is inclusion not exclusion. Jesus is the exclusive way for people to be included in the Father’s Kingdom, but John 14:6 is often weaponized to condemn people to Hell instead of inviting people to Heaven.
Love without truth is condescending.
Love does not patronize or placate people with half-truths and omissions. Love tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Attempting to express love without truth is disingenuous and damages relationships by fostering distrust.
Be careful with love. Be wise with love. Be respectful with love. Be truthful with love.
Being reckless with love is foolish, mean-spirited, and antichrist. Consider again the exclusive claim of Christ in John 14:6. It would be condescending not to share the truth regarding Jesus. There is no way to the Father that doesn’t go through Jesus, because He is the way. The exclusive claim of Christ is often downplayed because it can come across as troubling and judgmental, but He is such a wonderful way. God so loved the world that He would send His one and only Son to die in our place. Jesus is the way for our imperfection to be removed from us once and for all. Jesus is the exclusive way for everyone to have the opportunity to be included in the Father’s Kingdom. If we fail to share the truth about Jesus, we cannot accurately share His love.
God is love. Jesus is God. Jesus is love. Jesus is truth. Truth is love. Love is truth.
