There are many preachers and church members who make a big deal about truth. They want the truth to be preached, taught, and spoken. You hear a lot about this in church. Some big shot preacher gets up and rants and raves preaching truth wounding and blasting everyone who gets in their way. This is true of many evangelists who blow into town, blow up the church, and then blow onto the next town. [Eph 4:15] exhorts us to speak the truth in love.
If you do not love the people you preach or teach to you don't care if they are wounded and beaten down by the words you say. You can justify your behavior by saying the word of God offends and it cuts deeply. Yes. We preachers are supposed to preach the truth. We not supposed to water down God's inspired word. We are not to compromise.
That does not give us the excuse to use the pulpit to be a showman with loud and catchy phrases uttered to solicit shock in response from the crowd. We are supposed to declare the truth. All of it. Even those passages many preachers like to shy away from. We are supposed to declare the whole counsel of God, but we are supposed to do it in love.
I have found over the years as a pastor that I can declare any hard truth, and the people will receive it, when they know I love them. When I have prayed with them, wept with them, sat by their hospital bedsides, grieved at the cemetery with them, listened to them, and invested my life in them; they know I love them and they listen more intently.
Many pastors know very little about loving the flock. They use the pulpit to manipulate and intimidate people. Some pastors and evangelists are nothing more than bullies in the pulpit. They do not care about people. Nobody says anything to them because the messages are Biblically true but they are not preached from a heart of love. That pastor does not have the heart of a shepherd.
On the other hand, there are pastors who love their congregations. They are great shepherds but they do not preach hard truth so as not to offend anyone. They sugar coat the messages. It is like eating a steady diet of candies, cake, ice cream, and pastries. That all might taste good but too much of it is not good for you. There is no substance in that diet. A steady diet of sugar coated preaching can actually harm the flock rather than nourish their souls. Truth has to be preached. Hard truths of the Bible cannot be avoided.
If I truly love the flock I will declare the meat of God's word. I will offer them the whole counsel of God but do so with a loving shepherd heart. We are supposed to preach, teach, and speak the truth in love. We are supposed to be bold as a lion declaring the truth and yet with a loving shepherd's heart.
I preached one of those hard passages this past Sunday from [Luke 9:57-62]. God welled passion in my soul and I did not hold back. I also do not feel I crossed a line and preached hard just for the sake of preaching hard. I love these people and want them to be presented to Christ as a spotless bride who need not be ashamed. I will not shrink back from declaring hard truth but I will also love and serve them as well.
When I went to the back to shake hands after that message a lady thanked me for the message and said she enjoyed it. I commented that there was no way she could have really enjoyed it. The truth hit hard. She looked me in the eye and said she did indeed enjoy it and she needed her toes stepped on from time to time. I sat with another lady in the hospital today that told me Sunday's message was just for her and how God used it in her life.
Hard truth preached indeed but truth preached from a heart of love.
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