The truth without love

I have been reading a book recently entitled, "The Vision", by Rick Joyner. It is an extremely interesting book in which the author walks his readers through a metaphorical vision of the heaven. At one point in the book, the author writes about an interaction with a man who had died and gone to heaven. The man in heaven, who while on earth was a great evangelist, is explaining some of his greatest mistakes. In the midst of his explanation, he makes a statement that just jumped off the page for me when I read it. The man says, "The truth without love is how Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."As someone who is very passionate about this thing called truth, this statement stuck with me. It made me wonder how many times I have spoken to others, or written something on this blog that was full of truth, but was not adequately surrounded by God's ferocious love. I think this a great danger that we all need to guard our hearts from if we desire to gain a deeper understanding of God's truth. If we are not careful, we can forget the greatest truth of the bible. That truth is God's love and forgiveness displayed through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.Every breakthrough that I have personally experienced in my walk with Christ has come with a new revelation of this love. When I initially gave my life to Him, yes I was convicted by my sin, but can you imagine if that is where it had ended? What if the story was just, "you are a sinner, and you should feel guilty, shameful, and condemned for that"? That isn't the good news! The good news is that you are a sinner, but God loves you anyway! He sent His Son to die on a cross to save you from that sin before you even set foot on this earth!The truth without love leaves us feeling hopeless and condemned, but the truth wrapped in love fills us with hope and joy! If we are full of the truth but have no love in us, we will not look on those who are broken and have compassion or grace. If we are full of love and truth, we may see the sin of others, but we will look past that and see them the way Jesus sees them. With love in our hearts, we can recognize that we are no better than them, and would be in the same situation if it were not for the love of Jesus Christ.As we interact with others throughout our day today, I pray that the Holy Spirit helps us to see others the way the He sees them. I pray that we will make an effort to look past their imperfections. I pray that instead of searching for all those areas where they don't measure up to God's perfect truth, we seek to show them love simply because God loves them. None of us measure up to God's perfect standard, and yet He loves us anyway. Instead of tearing people down with the truth, let's seek to build them up with the God's greatest truth; His unconditional love for us. "Real love is a response. Always has truth and grace. If it’s all truth, and no grace it’s a rigid, legalistic, self-righteousness. If it’s all grace and no truth it’s just mushy, sentimental, emotionalism." - Chip Ingram If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3