“Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
in truth and love
We experience grace, mercy, and peace in the sphere of truth and love. Truth and love are the conditions for grace, mercy, and peace. The Christian walk rests on truth and is demonstrated in love.
Truth makes love discerning, so love never undermines truth. Love moderates truth so that truth does not show itself in harshness. Fellowship always revolves around both truth and love. Truth is the sphere of principle and love is the sphere of attitude and action. Truth makes genuine love viable.
PRINCIPLE:
God always conditions love by the truth.
APPLICATION:
We can emphasize love at the expense of truth, and we can emphasize truth at the expense of love. Love must always be predicated on truth. Giving material aid without the context of truth is not a Christian act. Propagation of error in the name of love is not truth! That is simply sentimentality.
To unite religions into an ecumenical movement, some religionists try to reduce the things they believe to almost zero. They cannot tolerate the truth. The Bible repudiates such ideas.
Eph 4:15, “…but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ…”
Jesus is truth personified. He is the love of God wrapped up as one incredible gift of God.
Jn 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Eph 4:20-21, 20 “But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus…”
Jesus is also the personification of love.
2 Co 9:15, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
1 Ti 1:5, “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith…”
2 Ti 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
