by Esther Cheng
Have you ever received a death grip handshake where you felt like your hand was being crushed by a vise? Or perhaps the opposite – a handshake so limp you might as well have been grabbing a jellyfish tentacle? When we speak the truth without love, it’s possible that we crush the people we interact with due to a lack of love and empathy. On the flip side, if we neglect sharing the truth of God’s Word in the name of “love,” we provide no substance to the other individual and in that way, actually withhold the love of God from them too.
This past week, Kevin Tse spoke on chapter 8 of Ken Sande’s The Peacemaker on the topic of speaking the truth in love. I was particularly thankful for this sermon because it is all too common where I see myself wanting to give counsel focusing only on half of “speaking the truth in love.” At times, I fail to genuinely love and care for the person but instead bombard the person with Scripture. Scripture is profitable for all things (2 Timothy 3:16), but without love, I can just be a noisy gong (1 Corinthians 13:1). On the other hand, there are times when I withhold from pointing the other person in the name of “loving” them. When I pause to evaluate my heart, it is often from a fear of man that I do so and in this case, is actually unloving to them that I withhold the goodness of God’s Word (Proverbs 27:6)! We must be on guard of our own thoughts and motives and seek speak the truth in love.
In conflict situations, there is a presumption that there is already a perceived wrong; that something is off and requires gentle restoration (Galatians 6:1). This would not simply be a chance to fix your relationship with the offender, but of their relationship with God. Sure, we know 1 Corinthians 10:31 by heart and understand that glorifying God is of utmost importance, but do we seek His glory in restoring a relationship? In our hearts, are we actually desiring the other individual to fess up for treating you in an unpleasant way? Or do we want the awkward silence and tension to end in the room when they’re around? No matter how much they sinned against us, most importantly, the sin was committed against God. In Psalm 51, David was convicted of his sin towards the Lord alone; in verse 4, he cries out to God saying, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” It’s not to say that he didn’t sin against Bathsheba or Uriah, but the magnitude of the offense to God was exponentially greater when faced with His holiness. We must keep this perspective as we speak the truth in love to our brothers and sisters – that ultimately, we seek their restoration with a holy and just God. In Ephesians 4:29, it mentions that we ought to seek to build the other person up in their relationship with God – we can do this by pointing them to their sin which Christ died for. This also fits the occasion that they desperately have a need to repent of their sins to the Lord.
Before we go revealing every detail of a person’s sinful actions, we need to remember to restore others gently… and remember, we are not the Holy Spirit! Even if we reveal their sins against God (and perhaps to others, or even to their own bodies), only the Holy Spirit can convict them of sin. In humility, be quick to hear and slow to speak (James 1:19). It is possible that there was miscommunication, or they could be a young / immature believer who does not understand that what they did was sin. After all, “we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Romans 15:1). Bear with the failings of others, not by sweeping sin issues under the rug, but encouraging others in truth and love. Rewind back to when Christ first saved us – how as immature Christians, there was much to learn and many mistakes made along the way… and yet, our shortcomings and sins could not separate us from His grace (Ephesians 2:8-9) and nothing could separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38-39). God is gracious and thankfully, He uses these difficult situations to sanctify us until the day we die (Philippians 1:6).
May we prayerfully and humbly seek the Lord for wisdom as we struggle with our flesh to seek God’s glory amidst the painful impacts of another’s sin against God.