2 John 6 “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.5“
In just 13 verses, the word truth appears five times and the word love three. John welds them together like steel. You cannot pull them apart without destroying both.
Tozer understood this: “Without the Way, there is no going; without the Truth, there is no knowing; without the Life, there is no living.”
Love without truth is cowardice wearing a smile. It lets a man walk off a cliff and calls it kindness. It watches a brother drift into destruction and says nothing because the truth might sting. That is not love. That is abandonment.
John’s warning echoes Paul in Ephesians 4:14-15: “So that we may no longer be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.7“
J. Sidlow Baxter drives it home: “Do we castigate the doctor for being intolerant with disease? Would any of us knowingly welcome a deadly virus into our bodies?”
Truth was under assault then. It still is. I want warriors around me, not flatterers. Friends who will tell me I am off course. The power of truth spoken in love is the bedrock of every relationship worth having.
How do you know truth?
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