Love and Truth

 There is one thing everyone in this world can agree on, everyone wants to be loved. Even the most metallic of hearts can be melted. Love is one the most wonderful gifts a body can receive, and one of the greatest gifts a body can give.
  Love is tricky though. To love means, at times, to be hard. Last week, I read through the book of I John. Usually when I read through the book, I tend to pay attention of I John 3:16, which says, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." Verses about dying tend to be eye-catching. But as I continued reading chapter four, the verses following stuck out. "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything." (I John 3:18-20).
  Christians talk a lot about love because it is universal. Sometimes we talk about love at the cost of the truth. Everyone loves love, while the truth is often unpopular. John that we belong to the truth. It is the truth that allows to show love. To show love may be to tell someone they are wrong; to tell them that the thing that makes them happy is killing them; to tell them they are literally going to hell. It is far from pleasant to do those things. It is certainly not nice. God does not ask to be nice though. Kind, yes. Loving, yes. And to be loving and kind does not mean side-stepping sticky issues because they are uncomfortable. It means gently and relentlessly presenting our fellow men with the truth when it hurts them and us.