Speak the Truth in Love
by Rick Cadden, Associate Pastor of Administration and Operations, Columbus Avenue Baptist Church
What do you automatically think of when someone mentions the month
February? Well of course…love. It’s the love month where boys and
girls and men and women all display their love for someone. I remember
my first exposure to Valentine’s Day in elementary school when the
boys gave Valentine cards to the girls and the girls even gave cards
to the boys. Back then it was a fun but silly holiday to me.
Today, Feb 14th Valentine’s Day, is still honored as a day to display
our love for someone. Pink cards fill the racks at the stores and pink
gifts are out. Boxes of chocolate in a pink heart box are still very
popular and given often. My favorite today that stems from when I was
kid is the colored candy hearts. I still buy them today.
For your information, love did not start with Cupid and Valentine Day!
God is love and He created love and demonstrated his love for us all
through the Bible. So the Bible would be the only real source of what
love is and how to display it to others. Valentine Day is fun and
maybe a little silly at times, but God is our source for love. If you
look up the word love in most study Bibles in the concordance, you
will get pages and pages of scriptures that relate to love.
As adults, there are a lot of ways we show our love to others. I am
sure people still buy pink cards and heart shaped boxes full of
chocolate but there are other ways to show your love to someone. Let’s
look at another way to love, that we often don’t think about. Jesus
says that we should speak the truth in all we say and do. Speaking the
truth to a friend, a spouse, a friend, or whoever, says that you love
them. In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5), Jesus spoke eight blessings on
those who were there. He then went on to speak about issues they were
facing and dealing with, however instead of blasting them for their
wrong doing, he spoke the truth in love. After he had finished, he
left the hillside and many followed him. That tells me he didn’t blast
them and make then mad; instead, he spoke in a soft voice in love all
the still correcting their behavior.
WOW! What a model for us to know how to speak the truth in love.
What’s sad is seeing parents abusing their children, yelling and
screaming at them, pushing them around, and getting nowhere. It’s the
same with couples. It’s sad to see couples arguing and yelling and
screaming like little kids thinking that will fix the problem. Jesus
gave us a better way in speaking the truth in love.
Here is a challenge for you! Take the whole month of February in light
of Valentine Day and the whole love thing and whenever you speak, to
whomever you speak, speak the truth in love. This will be hard because
we are moving through life so fast that we don’t even take the time to
stop and talk to people many times. This will be hard because you will
not want to offend anyone. I think people are offended more if you
love them and tell them a lie! Make a conscious effort so always speak
the truth and speak it in love. Where there is love, truth must be
also! Scripture reference Ephesians 4.15
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