Recently someone I care deeply about said, “You’re a workaholic!” Was it true? Am I addicted to my work, using it to try to soothe my soul in the same way an alcoholic uses booze to avoid dealing with real issues in life? Saying that to me wasn’t very nice. It certainly was not comforting, but if true, it was the right thing to do! Confronted with the indictment, I took time to evaluate it for truthfulness. Encountering the hard edge of the truth was painful.
Are you afraid to tell the truth, afraid to face the truth? Many of us are. We would rather live in the land of “warm fuzzies” where ‘seldom is heard a discouraging word.’ Most of us think that is the same as being a loving person. Is it really? If your friend stood at a 3rd floor window convinced that he could step out and fly away like a bird, would it be the most loving thing to encourage him to follow his bliss, knowing that the moment he left the window he would plunge to the ground and to serious injury or death? Of course not. If you genuinely cared for him, you would restrain him, no matter how angry he became when you disturbed his dream!
Ezekiel was called by God to be a watchman. His ministry was about telling the truth, and so is ours. Take a look. "I’ve made you a watchman for Israel. The minute you hear a message from me, warn them. If I say to the wicked, ‘Wicked man, wicked woman, you’re on the fast track to death!’ and you don’t speak up and warn the wicked to change their ways, the wicked will die unwarned in their sins and I’ll hold you responsible for their bloodshed. But if you warn the wicked to change their ways and they don’t do it, they’ll die in their sins well-warned and at least you will have saved your own life." (Ezekiel 33:7-9, The Message)
Disciple of Christ, we live in a world filled with people living a lie, deceived by evil, heading for sure destruction. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to need to be loved so much that we won’t tell them the truth? Is their approval so important to us that we will tacitly approve their choice with our silence? Or will we take up God’s call to tell the truth, to sound the alarm?
There are a couple of very important issues surrounding truth-telling.
First, make sure you are telling the truth, not merely spreading your preferences! It’s easy to confuse our opinion with God’s Truth. Know the Scripture well and seek the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Second, check your attitude! If you love to confront, you shouldn’t. An old preacher once told me that I should never preach on Hell unless it made tears flow down my cheeks to do so. That’s sound advice. If we enjoy making people squirm, we’re simply on a power trip, using the truth as a bludgeon.
Third, love, love, love. "Speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ." (Ephesians 4:15, NLT) The truth lovingly spoken is healing. We should use it like a skillful surgeon uses a scalpel. He cuts, but only to heal!
Fourth, speak only what you live! Few things bring more discredit to Christ and His Church than hypocrites who love to tell the truth while living in sinful deception. Jesus used a humorous illustration about getting the fencepost out of your own eye before moving in to remove the splinter from your friend’s eye! Relentless apply the truth to yourself, first.
We should never be afraid of the truth. It sets us free. The person who knows the truth, loves the truth, and lives in the truth is amazingly blessed, strong in the face of troubles, and easy to love because you never have to question who he actually is. The truth makes us right with God when we face it and then go to Him to receive the gift of salvation in Christ. Jesus promised, "When the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said." (John 16:13, The Message) Then, He prayed, "Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. " (John 17:17, The Message)
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