Christ’s love melts frozen hearts.
The Sisterhood More-than-a-Bible-Study has been working through Scriptures and thoughts from Paul Miller’s book, Love Walked among Us. This past week, we wrestled with God as we sought to understand what it means to speak honestly with compassion as Jesus did. Here, in part, are a few ideas about how to “speak the truth in love.”
- Humble your-SELF. (Phil 2:5-11). If you are concerned about your own reputation, you will not risk loving in this way.
- Pray without ceasing, and ask others to pray as well. You desperately need wisdom from above (James 1:), so seek the Holy Spirit who gives it.
- Name sin for the purpose of inviting to repentance. Jesus exposed the Pharisees as hypocrites, because he wanted them to see their sin. He was distressed over their self-worship and invited them to worship him.
- Recognize there’s a good chance you will sin against the person you are speaking to, and rest in the reality of forgiveness.
- Be willing to disrupt as Jesus disrupts. Sometimes naming sin will turn our lives or others’ upside down.
- Recognize that God is not “safe” but He is “good.” In other words, God will disrupt our status quo and others so that we may love him more than ourselves or our own “peaceful” lives.
- Recognize that the person to whom you are speaking may not receive your words. In fact, they may become harder towards you (Exhibit A — The Pharisees). The question may be, “Do you believe God will take care of you in the painful fallout of trying to repair a broken relationship and meeting with a hard heart?”
- Remember your purpose — to glorify God and enjoy him FOREVER. That means at least in part that we have to trust him to change people — we can’t do it, even though he calls us to be part of it.
