Love Celebrates the Truth

Among its many praiseworthy qualities like patience, kindness, and mercy, is
love’s devotion to truth. Paul writes that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.”

There is a great conflict being waged between the culture and the church,
between the flesh and the Spirit, between Satan and God. Paul’s remark
about love embracing truth and opposing wrongdoing really gets to the heart
of this conflict. It boils down to right versus wrong. Love adores what is right
and abhors what is wrong. Love unabashedly stands in the camp of
righteousness and truth.

Pilate asked Jesus, “what is truth?” (John 18:38). How many people alive
today could answer that question? Probably very few. Truth has been turned
on its head in our culture. Truth is subjective, redefined by individuals to suit
their tastes and desires. The world resists the idea that truth is objective and
absolute. The gender identity craze is the latest manifestation of the culture’s
antagonism to any notion that truth is fixed and immutable.

Jesus revealed the answer to Pilate’s question. The truth is God’s word (John
17:17). Our investigation of the truth must begin and end in the pages of
Scripture. All the truth that we need to know is right there. Now it is true that
we can learn some things about the natural world through scientific discovery.
But even those insights direct us to gaze in wonder at the mighty God who
created it all (Psalm 19:1). Truth is unknowable apart from God.

The Bible defines what is morally true. It explains the difference between
righteousness and unrighteousness, godliness and wickedness. It tells us
what sin is, what sin does to people, and the way to be saved from sin. Is
there any more important truth than that? Understanding salvation from sin is
connected to faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of mankind
(John 8:24). Abiding in His word enables us to know the truth which will set us
free (v.32).

Love embraces and cherishes the truth of God. Therefore, the Christian who
loves as he ought to will walk in the truth. He will carefully filter the messages,
thoughts, ideas, and actions of the world. If they don’t pass the “truth test” (as 
defined in the BIble), he will reject them. He won’t win many friends or garner
praise. He will suffer at the hands of his enemies because of his loyalty to the
truth as revealed in Scripture. But he will be truly blessed and rejoice in the
truth that he has learned from God. And he will boldly proclaim it to a dying
world; he will do so in the hope that he might save some who otherwise will
perish in their self-inflicted demise because they rejected the truth.

Do you love the truth?

– Kurt Paquette