Christians love the truth. At least, they should.

Truth is a beautiful thing. It is so lovely, so worthy of being loved. In contrast to a world that resists the notion of objective, absolute truth, the Christian says, “Oh, we know that there is such a truth, and we love it.”

Jesus Christ is the truth, and we love him. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” he proclaims to us, and we love him for it.

Meditate on Truth⤒🔗

Philippians 4:8 instructs us to medi­tate on “whatever things are true.” Think about what is true. Think about truth.

This is something we should be happy to do. When a man loves his wife, it’s not a chore to think about her. It puts a smile on his face, to think about how wonderful it is to be married to her, how blessed he is to be able to spend his life with her, how privileged he is to be loved by her.

How privileged we are to be able to know the truth of Jesus Christ. And what an honour it is to know the truth that the Creator God has made us in his image, and He enables us to know him as our heavenly Father.

“Meditate on whatever things are true! Lord, telling me to do this is better than commanding me to eat ice cream.”

Love the Truth, Love in Truth←⤒🔗

But now, here’s the thing: not only are we as Christians called to love the truth, we are also called to love in truth. 1 John 3:18, tells us, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

Love in truth. The word ‘truth’ here is pretty much the same as the word ‘truth’ in Philippians 4:8, which tells us to meditate on whatever things are true. Truth must shape our thinking. And truth must shape our love.

When we speak about truth, we’re talking about something that is real, something that is consistent with the way things actually are. We’re talking about something that has certainty, validity. “Truly, truly, I say to you. I say to you something you can rely on, something you can take to the bank. I say to you some­thing that you can know without a doubt, something that God, the source of truth, has verified to be true.”

And so when we are called to love in truth, we are talking about a love that is real, a love that cannot be denied. It’s a love that gets to the core, the essence of who we are, and flows out from that es­sence.

And here’s the thing: it is so cru­cial that the love we demonstrate be real, be genuine, that if we aren’t loving in truth, then it cannot really be said that we love the truth.

You can be spending all your time meditating on the great truths of the Christian faith. But if you don’t love in truth, then no matter how much you love the truth, it be­comes irrelevant.

1 Corinthians 13:1-2,

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clang­ing cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

I could know everything there is to know doctrinally. But without a genuine love, without love that is real, I am nothing.

What Loving in Truth is All About←⤒🔗

But then the question becomes: what does it mean to love in truth?

Is it a matter of having a deep emotional sensation? The stronger I feel my love, the more real it is?

A love that is real is a love that is felt. But that’s not the most reliable guide as to what it means to love in truth. A young man wanting to have his way with the girl he is dating tells her, “I love you.” He feels it very strongly, he may even genuinely believe that he really does love this girl. But the real truth behind his feeling is this: “I love myself, and I want you for my own per­sonal satisfaction.” What he is strongly feeling has nothing to do with loving in truth.

To love in truth goes much deeper than that.

Perhaps it would be helpful to have an example here of what loving in truth is really all about. Thankfully, the Bible gives us a perfect example. We read in 1 John 3:16, “By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us.”

You want to see love in truth? Look to the cross. Look to what Jesus Christ did, laying down his life for you. Look at how he took upon himself the anger of God against sin, an anger that should have been inflicted upon you. He bore the full weight of that anger, so that you would not have to. Now there is love in truth, in ac­tion.

James Montgomery Boice writes about the connection be­tween the love of God and the cross. “It is interesting to notice in this connection that there is hardly a verse in the New Testament that speaks of God’s love that does not also speak (or the context does not also speak) of the cross. For instance, there is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Gala­tians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 1 John 4:10: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” In each of these verses the cross of Christ is made the measure of God’s love as well as the primary means by which we become aware of it.

There on the cross, the ultimate example of loving in truth: Jesus sac­rificing himself.

We can hardly imagine a more beautiful expression of this love than that which is laid out for us in Ephe­sians 5:25-27:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

The true love that a husband should have for his wife, we can hardly imagine anything more beautiful, anything more worthy to be medi­tated on. God takes that tangible example and says, “Let me point you to something that’s even greater, infi­nitely greater: the love of Christ for his bride, the church.”

Ephesians 5:30-32,

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Christ loves his bride. He gave himself for his church, to give her a beauty beyond imagination. A beauty unstained by the filth of sin. A beauty that she will be able to show off for her husband, Christ, forever.

This kind of self-sacrificial love that Christ demonstrated, and that we are called to emulate, it’s not an easy love. The self-serving love, which is no love at all, is far easier. That’s the default position we are inclined to. We want to look out for ourselves, satisfy our own cravings, do things that we believe will benefit us. But what will truly benefit us is a kind of love that first asks the ques­tion: how will this benefit the one I am called to love?

Concrete Loving in Truth←⤒🔗

So how do we demonstrate this kind of love, a love that looks outward? Well, it does involve being willing to give up our lives for others. But that’s not all there is to it.

To love in truth means living for the good of others, rather than our­selves. It will involve having a gener­ous spirit.

1 John 3:17-18:

But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

James 2:14-17:

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and desti­tute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Faith without works is dead. Love without concrete demonstrations of generos­ity, is dead.

This is something we need to take on board. And it’s not something that we can look to others to do for us. This is something we need to demand of ourselves before we de­mand it of others.

Some people seem to think that this sort of self-sacrificial love is why we have the government. They be­lieve that the essence of concern for the poor is to make sure that the gov­ernment takes care of them. They cheer on the Robin Hood approach, where you steal from the rich to give to the poor. And they think that cheering this on means that they’ve done what they needed to do for the poor.

Now, I’m certainly not trying to say that the government must never have any role to play in any of this. But paraphrasing James 2:15-16, “If a brother or sister is naked and desti­tute of daily food, and one of you merely says to them, ‘Go in peace to Centrelink and they will make sure that you are warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” Loving in truth means doing what you personally can do.

Here’s one way that you can love in deed. The PCEA Missions Com­mittee, along with our treasurer and webpage manager, have cooper­ated together to set up a scheme for helping to support needy stu­dents at the Mission School in Chhapara. Please seriously con­sider whether this is something that can help you to demonstrate what it means to love in deed.

Mind you, self-sacrificial love is not just about giving money. Lov­ing in truth also means defending those who are not able to defend themselves. Quoting Peter Barnes, “A Christian cannot remain silent when terrible things are happen­ing — whether it be the consigning of Jews to gas ovens in Nazi Ger­many or the wanton destruction of unborn life today. Modern secular man is becoming increasingly cal­lous.”

In a culture where love is de­fined as gratifying lusts, it’s no sur­prise that there is a callous disre­gard for those human beings that result from the act of gratifying lusts. The wanton destruction of unborn life today is perhaps the most visible demonstration of how contemporary man has no idea what it really means to love in truth. If we are to love in truth, we need to do what we can to fight against this terrible injustice.

But again, it’s not just simply about doing the deeds for their own sake. We could be generous, we could fight for justice, simply for the self-satisfaction that it gives us. That’s not the point. The point is that we demonstrate love to others, because of our love for the God who has so richly demonstrated his love to us. It’s about giving glory to him. It’s about doing everything we can so that he may be praised and worshipped.

Is this your goal? Meditate on what it means to love the Lord your God. And meditate on how it is that you can show this love to God by concrete demonstrations of love to those around you.