I overuse the word love. I don't mean to do it. It is simply used so casually in our society. I suppose I could embrace the many synonyms for love. Perhaps that is something I will think about doing in this new year of 2019. I was reading scripture this morning. I curiously started looking for verses where the truth exposed love... but as I suspected... I could not find them. Love is what reveals the truth. Truth can be freeing, but love is part of the application process.
It can become easy to be bold and condemning when we believe we are right about something. I love the many examples Jesus gave us to choose love over being right. It simply is not easy in our human nature. Only the Holy Spirit at work within us curbs our desires to be more right than more loving.
In the scriptures, a woman is about to be stoned for adultery. Adultery is obviously wrong. Culturally, I shake my head that the man is not forced to take the judgement and punishment with her. It takes two, last I knew. I guess not much has changed in 2000 years. The modern relevance of the Word of God shines in this record of an incident found in John 8. The church leaders were trying to catch Jesus in some act or answer they could punish by the law.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus was her defense attorney before the church leadership. He put himself between the woman and the angry crowd and diffused the situation with love... and then truth.
I will always wonder what Jesus wrote. It must have been very revealing to the people in the crowd holding stones. She recognized his Lordship and he freed her to leave different than she came. No longer condemned, but free to live a new life.
"Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church." -Ephesians 4:15
Love can reveal truth. Love is so much more than an overused word on a box of chocolates on Valentines day. It reveals our hearts. It changes lives. It can change us, one day at a time.
"Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions." -1 John 3:18
Today, I am grateful for truth in love.
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