Love is ... (Pt 4)

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4:29-31 ESV).

Today we look at the Apostle Paul’s third defining characteristic of true love: Believers must be bold but not a bully. Boldness leads the way and at the same time does not bully people to follow. A bold leader simply gets out front and takes the arrows. When things go wrong the leader takes the hit. The buck stops with the leader and the leader doesn’t blame or bully others. There is a great difference between the shepherd and the butcher… the shepherd leads the flock to safe pasture, while the butcher drives the flock to certain destruction. We must understand, if God commands us to boldly say something, he will give us the power to do so if we ask. Just like love, boldness is a characteristic of God (v. 31). We should always pray for its growth in us. After telling the Christians in Ephesus to put on the whole armor of God, Paul asks the saints to pray for his boldness (cf. Ephesians 6:19-20). Boldness is how we ought to speak – never with sugar-coated, soft, timid, watered-down speech. Boldness speaks loud and clearly as we move forward to proclaim the truth. We should never draw back from messages that will “get us into trouble” with this or that people group, but our motives must be drawn from a compassionate heart and kind spirit. In the church and out of the church our life should speak the same things. Being bold in our beliefs and the truth as we lead others will sometimes cause us opposition but true love will not bully but love when reviled and persecuted. Sometimes this may mean we are leading while bleeding. Jesus is our model of this kind of relational conduct. Being bold is a difficult skill. It is a bit like salt. By itself it’s not very good but when mixed with the right foods it can make a huge difference. When I was young I remember seeing my dad put salt on watermelon. When I asked him what he was doing, and he simply said, “Try it.” To my surprise, the salt brought out the sweetness in a way I’d never experienced before. I must confess I still like to salt my watermelon. The key is balance which can only be achieved by thinking of others as companions in the journey instead of competitors in the race!