The truth that set me free

#4 Tip for LIFE: Speak Truth

L.I.F.E.: Living Intentionally and Focusing Eternally

He squared my shoulders, looked me straight in the eye and with a steady voice spoke the words that finally released me from my agony.

“You are not responsible for his salvation.”

For months, I had been carrying a weight God never asked me to bear.

Someone I loved had walked away from the Lord and chosen his own path, and it broke my heart. I believed that if I could just say the right things and do everything perfectly, he would come back.

But what if I said the wrong thing? What if I pushed him farther away?

The burden was crushing me.

No one knew.

Or so I thought.

The Lord knew. In His kindness, he sent a dear friend and brother in Christ to speak the truth my heart desperately needed to hear.

That conversation began changing me.

This brings us to our fourth and final pillar for Living Intentionally and Focusing Eternally: Speak Truth.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked about knowing truth, choosing truth, and living truth. But God never intended for His truth to stop with us. He calls us to share it with a world that desperately needs hope.

Speaking truth isn’t always easy. It isn’t always welcomed. Yet when we speak the truth with love, humility, compassion, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, our words can become one of God’s greatest gifts to someone else.

Sometimes that means reminding a friend of what God says when they’re believing a lie. Sometimes it means gently confronting falsehood. Other times, it means courageously proclaiming God’s promises in a world that would rather you stay silent.

Just as God used my friend’s words to begin healing my heart, He can use your words to bring hope, freedom, and truth to someone else.

YOUR TURN: Claiming L.I.F.E. in your story means Speaking Truth

• Who in your life might need to hear God’s truth and encouragement?

• Is there an area where God is asking you to speak with courage, humility, and love?

As we wrap up this series, remember that these four pillars build on one another:

1. We first know God’s Truth by spending time in His Word.

2. We choose His Truth over the competing voices around us.

3. We live His Truth through the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. And then, as He gives us opportunities, we speak His Truth with love and grace.

When we put them in place, these four pillars help us grow into mature believers, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 4:15-16:

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

We are each here to do our work for God as part of the body of Christ

It’s our prayer that as you know, choose, live, and speak His Truth, you will continue growing into the person He created you to be, bringing Him glory in every part of your story.

Prayer:

Father, thank You for revealing Your Truth to us through Your Word. As we know it, choose it, live it, and speak it, help us become more like Christ. And as we live it out, give us eyes to see those who need encouragement, wisdom to know what to say, and courage to speak with gentleness and love. May our words point others to You and bring glory to Your name. Amen.