What Does It Actually Mean to Preach the Truth in Love?
Evangelist and author Matt Brown is on a mission to help Christians find the balance between truth and love, encouraging people to consider how they should “walk and act and be like Jesus.”
Brown, the founder of the Think Eternity ministry and the author of the new book Truth Plus Love: The Jesus Way to Influence, delivered a powerful message on “The Pure Flix Podcast,” reminding Christians about some essential facts about Jesus: Christ always spoke truth and attracted audiences, He was always healing and He was motivated by incredible kindness.
“He had a huge influence on people,” Brown said. “He spoke the truest truth out there and yet he had crowds of people who flocked around him.”
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Listen to Brown break down what it really means to balance “truth” and “love”:
It’s a powerful reminder that encourages people to turn to Jesus as an example of how to live in an increasingly tattered and fractured culture. In addition to truth, though, Jesus was also the embodiment of love.
“He was always healing people,” Brown said, noting that Christ cared for the hurting. “He had an incredible compassion, an incredible kindness. And this was God coming to earth, showing us his way.”
Brown said he thought for years that spiritual maturity meant “intensity,” but that he came to learn that it’s really about the fruit of the spirit, as described in Galatians 5:22-23.
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Those verses read (NIV): “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
“There’s a challenge that we face. We’re the first generation … to have an online megaphone through social media,” Brown said. “We’re constantly saying how we feel about everything that’s going on, and there’s a lot of division and frustration.”
But he encouraged everyone to take a step back and consider how they are representing Christ and whether they’re actually influencing people in that direction.
“I don’t want to tell anyone not to speak truth … but we need to remember 1 Corinthians 13 in it,” he said. “If we do all this stuff without love, we’re just a noise.”
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In the end, Brown is hoping to inspire people to see God through life’s ups and downs.
“In a world that is full of bad news, there’s more goodness than you can ever hope for in God,” he said. {eoa}
This article was originally published on Pure Flix Insider. Visit Pure Flix for access to thousands of faith and family-friendly movies and TV shows. You can get a free, one-month trial here.
