If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, in the whole truth of God, we muse show forth the joy of gospel grace, of the eternal blessings which we experience now and in the future in Christ. We are to speak boldly, with surety and without fear of man, yet in a spirit which shows the gentleness of a dove.
One of the downsides of being a Christian is that we do not have the freedom to let the truth work for us. We live in a world where most people don’t really have much compunction shading things toward their point of view. A little touch here and there so that the story becomes one where they are the champion and everyone else comes short. These are things which can frustrate believers as we live and breathe in a world soaked in sin. There are times when our faith in the risen Christ and love of those things that are good can get in the way of advancement at work, opportunities for extracurricular fun, whether that be sport, hobbies, competitions, or whatever.
Much temptation awaits.
For today’s prayer and worship help I want to come at this question with a positive message. Telling the truth, maintaining the truth, and accepting the truth should be a central part of the identity of every single believer in the Lord Jesus. The church shouldn’t be a place where we struggle to deal with the same fight against untrustworthiness and vanity that we do out in the domain of the prince of the power of the air. I’m not naïve enough not to recognize that we have sinners in the body of Christ. However, as Paul writes in Romans 6 we are to be found as those who love the word, and who seek to put to death the old man, and be conformed to the image of our Savior. Our fallibleness is not something we should lean into, rather we who rest in the grace of Jesus should more readily deal with sin and turn away from its lies. It is in the hope of the gospel that we live and move and have our being. The way this works itself out in the subject at hand is that as Christians we are to be those who value truth above all things primarily because we live in the household of the God of truth. It is the currency of our faith. We live in the full assurance of redemption because the Lord’s word is always yeah and amen in Himself.
Living in complete integrity is one way that we express the second table of the law to our neighbor. You’ve heard me say before that we cannot love our neighbor until we love ourselves first. At first glance that sounds kind of arrogant bordering on selfish. However, the more we learn to center our own soul in the covenant promises the more we are drawn to see the blessing of Christ’s words to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. Truly His grace is sufficient for all of our needs.