a lot when we talk about, you know, loving the center. I hate to see it, but we're not
willing to step up and speak the truth into that center. We're not willing to use it in
a manner that is not, I'm not going to say offensive, but because the truth can be offensive,
the truth hurts, especially when we're talking about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and
the Father, the Creator of all things, and the help of the Lord that He gives us and
the Holy Spirit. So, you know, I'm looking at this and I'm like that. Sometimes we're
going to have to hurt people's feelings to tell the truth. Now, I believe that there's
a manner and a way in which you can say these things, and my wife would be the first to
tell you, I am not the best at it. Like I said, 22 years in the military, I'm used to talking
to privates and lowering listed and just saying how it needs to be said so there's no misunderstanding
of what I'm, my point that I'm trying to get across. And I think sometimes that, you know,
we as men, even though it is the truth, we don't say it with a lot of love sometimes.
And that's one thing God's been working on me in my life. That's really nothing. It's
important in this episode to combine the two truths because we can tell the truth, but
we don't have to do it in a way that is hurtful, vindictive or self gratifying. And truth can
be used in that. But the love part comes in the how do we say this to pierce the heart,
not just build up our own pride? You know, it's a, it's a, it's a touchy subject, but
you look at how Jesus did it. Jesus didn't say it hateful. He said it in a tone that
was consistent. And when you speak it constantly, it's not something new that somebody doesn't
understand or know about you, about your character. And when you say it, there is, they understand
it is said with love, whether they like it or not. It's not always your choice. I mean,
that's their choice to process the information that the truth that you give them. But we
try to do it in a way that doesn't push people away from Jesus, that I think it's important
that we do it in a way that maybe intrigues their interest a little more of like, why
is this person like that? Right? I mean, I know what he said is, is true. I mean, we
all do because the truth, like John 3 16 says, I mean, you know, God loves us that much.
He imprinted his love and his blueprint for our life on our souls when we were created.
Now, we turn away from that. We fight that because I think as humans, sometimes we get
a little arrogant as to what we want is better than what God wants. But that's a different
show for a different time. You know, and you look, go through the definition or go through
the dictionary looking for a definition of, of what love is, you know, I was looking through
Webster's, you know, had to go down to the eighth definition in Webster's before it mentions
God as love, love from God, you know, Webster's most of their definitions one through seven
are talking about affection for another human for the interest of sex, the world, you know,
the world puts cupid first before God. How jacked up are we in that aspect that we put
a fiction, a fictional character, something that doesn't even exist before a God that
truly exists that we see as miracles every day. We see his miracles. We look outside.
You see the sun, you see the stars, you see the trees, you see the grass, you see all
of this and you see God every day. But yet you choose to, you know, I think we all get
carried away. We choose to put that ahead or we get caught up in what the world says
love is, you know, love is, oh, it's okay. You'll be fine telling people what they want
to hear and that's not love. I mean, that's true betrayal in my mind in the sense that,
you know, it may not be the best for that person instead of telling that person, no,
you don't need to do that because, you know, this is what God says. This is what Jesus
says and this is how we're supposed to do it. But because we don't want to hurt their
feelings or feel the rejection from that person that we're speaking the truth into, we don't
say it and we're all guilty of it. You know, every day, I think it's that fear of proclaiming
the Lord and his word and the greatness of it. I think it's important that we don't back
down from it, that we have to speak the truth and as God works on my heart through these
terms, it's most definitely the truth. It's most definitely that right now in this world
in our time, we need the truth spoken out of love and that love is, I don't want to
see you burn in hell for the rest for eternity. I want to see you in heaven. I love you that
much that you may not like me at this point in time and you may not like me in this moment
because of what I'm about to say. But for the big picture and the long running for God's
purpose, most importantly, God's purpose, I'm going to tell you this truth so that I
can see you again in heaven and you can enjoy the love and the grace and the glory that will
be in heaven. You know, another definition I was going through the Nelson's Compact
Dictionary says this is what it says about love. The high esteem that God has for his
human children and the high regard which they in turn should have for him and other people.
You know, and in high regard to follow a standard of set way, right? That's that's love. And
it says, you know, look at John 1st John 4, 8. I mean, we see it all through the Bible.
Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. So if God is love, then
our example through the man that we were created to be, which was Jesus that Adam and Eve blew
that out of the water force. Right. But God gave us a second chance. So if God is love
and he loves us that much, God doesn't spare the truths of the Bible. I mean, we're not
talking about homosexuality and transgenderism and the look that's wrong. God said, I mean
God's word tells us clearly that there is male and female period, no matter how great
we think we are or how much he has allowed us to grow in our intelligence and we will
never be as smart and knowing as he is, his ways are better than our ways. His knowledge
is greater than all. We can never understand the power that God has, the love for us that
he has in that he knows all of this stuff and he's so patient and forgiving. You know,
Grace comes into play, but I think it's misunderstood because there's so many playing Christians
out there that think it's their job to save the world or they want to change God's word
to not be so upfront and I guess in their eyes offensive. Well, I mean, Jesus wasn't
afraid to offend people. He wasn't afraid to speak the truth. Either they listened
or they didn't. And that's where we have to take a stance, but he did it in a way that
wasn't, man, it wasn't, I don't see Jesus, he didn't use love as a way to get his own
way. You know, he didn't, he didn't use it for his personal gain. He didn't use it in
a manner that I don't know. He made everybody feel included, you know, and it was the truth
and his authority that he spoke it with was, I think, the main difference, right? I mean, he was, he was right out there. He put it out there. He spoke the truth, but he did it in a way that whoever heard him speak knew that he was the truth.
And not just to gain a position or he wasn't just saying it to make you feel good. I mean, it was, you're not always going to feel good when Jesus speaks to you because when you're in a position, you're not always going to feel good. You're not always going to feel good when Jesus speaks to you.
You know, I was thinking so we love God as Christians or we should, you know, we should. That's what we're here to do. We should be, we should be, we should be, we should be, we should be, we should be, we should be.
We got a lot of things to fix, but you know, I was thinking so we love God as Christians or we should, you know, we should. That's what we're here to do. We should be. We should love God.
A lot of our hearts and all our souls, right? But, you know, and if we love God, then we should love every, every human being on this planet because every human being on this planet, he created.
And if we're looking at that truth, then how is it that if we were put in the same situation that the God chose to put his son in, would you do it right now?
If you knew that if there was a pan, okay, let's say a pandemic like just came by and your child was the had the his blood was immune.
He was immune and by using his blood that you could cure everybody and tomorrow and that would not only bring into the pandemic or whatever you want to call it, but at the same time would bring peace on Earth.
Would you give up your son or daughter to do so?
Even as a Christian, that was a hard, hard one for me to think about.
Like I said, my our nine year old daughter went through battle with bone cancer and you know, that's one of the biggest realizations I had to have in my life is that me and God had to have that hard conversation one morning sitting on the front before just drinking my coffee.
That you know, she's not mine.
She is God's first.
She is his creation.
We have been blessed to have her on this planet and have her in our lives.
And then we he graced us with that blessing because she is something else.
But at the same time, the realization, you know, that God spoke in my heart was that she's not my she's his and he can do as he pleases.
You know, and that was a conversation we had on the front porch that night or that morning was that little backstory on that.
She had been sick for I think it was not day nine, day 10 of no eating, no drinking, no anything from the chemo.
And I was scared.
I was I was definitely scared that we were going to lose our daughter.
So me and God had had that talk and I'm like, you know, God, I understand that she's yours.
And I understand.
I see what you did with your son.
I see the sacrifice that you called him to make because of the love you have for for the world and everybody in it.
You know, I said, she's yours and you're going to do what you choose to do with her.
So I'm not going to like it if the end result is that you take her away from us, that you take her home.
You're only giving her to us for at that time, eight years and I don't want to lose her, but I do trust that no matter what the decision is or how you choose to move forward on this, that I will try to bring the best out of it that I can, that I will honor your decision above the want and needs of my heart.
And that that that was the hardest thing I think I've ever, ever had to do in my life.
But at the same time, our God is faithful and he does love us.
And I think for the first time I was 100% truly honest.
I mean, God sees everything that's in us, everything that we have.
Right.
We can't hide anything from him.
But it does make a difference when you verbalize that and you tell him, I trust you, you know, this is what I'm asking.
But I understand that your ways are better than mine and I trust it.
And I'm not going to like it.
And I probably say a whole bunch of words I shouldn't say and have a whole lot of feelings I probably shouldn't have.
But I will do my best to honor and glorify here, what you've chosen to do.
Tell his hardest conversation I've ever had in my life.
Thankfully, our God loves us enough and he was graceful enough to show me that morning after that prayer was going to the
hospital and I walked in the room and she was sitting up in the bed.
She was eating on a cracker a little bit, not a lot, but there was a it was a start right and drinking a little bit of water.
And he graced us with her recovery.
You know, since that point, I mean, I honestly say through all the scans coming up and you know, the journey we're still on with it.
I have no doubt I have no he's put a piece on my heart that everything's going to be OK.
You know, and I say this and God knows that it's still hard for me to chew.
But you know, that's that's what we're called to do is Christians is through the hard stuff to push through and still speak the truth and the glory.
And the in the in the love of our God for us.
And that is that it's over.
You know, he we went through everything that he needed us to go through and she is going to have a healthy, productive and wonderful, glorious life because he has blessed her life, giving it back to her clean, refreshed anew, you know, in a way that you hear about in the Bible.
But I think a lot of us that haven't been through some of the things that others have don't understand that you see the new come out of it through this cancer, just to see her new perspective, her new joy for life, her never wanting to miss a moment.
You know, she churches her staple has been since she was diagnosed.
She loves going to church and let's see her people.
But, you know, that is the love of God.
And the truth is, if he would have taken her, would I have been mad?
Would I have been upset?
Would I have been angry?
Would I have been?
Yeah, it would have been all of that.
But I shared that with him.
I told him the truth.
It came out of my mouth to him and he heard me and he knew and he understands.
You know, but I don't want us to be misunderstood in the world that most of the world thinks that we hate them.
And I think the point of this show right now is that, you know, if I love you, then I should be telling you the truth.
And the truth is God.
And I should be doing it in a way that you understand that it's not for my personal gain or it's not for my benefit that I'm telling you this truth.
That I don't have to share this with you.
I mean, my relationship with Jesus Christ is my relationship, but I want you to have that relationship.
That's how much I love you because I think I've said on the show before, you know, pen and tell her, you know, I think it's the P in the big one.
Whatever, you know, he's a devout atheist.
But like he said, he said, how as a Christian, can you say you love me when you're not willing to share the gospel with me?
Even though we know he's an atheist, he said, how much do you have to hate somebody to have that good news, that joy and not share it with somebody?
And I think that's where we're misunderstood in the world is that we have this great gift and we are not sharing it with everybody.
We're not bringing the truth to light in who Jesus Christ is.
You know, so when we're talking about truth, you know, you go back to Webster's and this is what it says about truth.
Conformity to fact or actuality, fidelity to an original standard, reality, actuality, statement proven to be or accepted as true, sincerity, integrity, and in Christian science, number six, God.
What should be number one, God is the truth. And then all this other one explaining what it is. That's how I would have wrote the dictionary, but they didn't ask me so.
But anyway, so God is truth.
And it's not much different in the Nelson's compact dictionary conformity to fact or actuality, faithfulness to an original or two standard.
Right. So conformity to fact or actuality that God is truth.
Faithfulness to an original or a standard in the beginning.
God create God created the heavens and the earth.
Right.
First John one eight, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
And there's a lot in in not only John but first John, first John three 18, their children let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth, truth being that God the Father is.
Love and truth and that we should as Jesus did should be moving to tell that truth.
In a loving manner.
Ephesians six 14 says stand firm then with the belt of truth buckle around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness righteousness in place.
John 14 six, Jesus, Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 17 17 sanctify them by the truth.
Your word is truth.
You know, there's no greater truth than what Jesus said John 14 six, I am the way and the truth and the life.
Jesus is the only way to get to the Father to for us to get to heaven. And if we're not sharing that because we love people and don't want them to burn in hell.
For eternity.
And we're called as followers of Jesus Christ.
To love your neighbor as we love ourselves.
If we love ourselves because Jesus is in our life, then to love others is to spread that is to spread that joy to spread that truth that all this anxiety all this depression all this all these things that you're feeling.
All these mental health issues that we have now.
That because we are in a corrupt system.
You know, one though appeal at you, right?
Well, how about let's let's I'm not don't get me wrong. I'm not minimizing mental health. I think it's very important as as you know you live long enough on this earth. God will walk you through what you don't understand sometimes and I've been blessed to
understand the fact that
our mental health is very important. But I believe that the root of having positive mental health is putting our trust and faith in Jesus and having that daily relationship with Jesus Christ and had through that relationship to Holy Spirit working inside of us.
But today society just wants to throw appeal to numb it to block it out. And that's not what God
wants from us.
I mean, you look through the Old Testament and you look how Jesus treated people.
He was there and he's here now.
I mean, David, you read Psalms and David's prayers and
everything that's this there. I mean, that's anxiety. Some of that's depression.
But I'm sure they didn't have prozac or whatever doctors prescribe now.
That they didn't have any of that back then what they had was God and that relationship with God.
That they were able to work through it and deal with it. We can't mask the problem that it's mental health with drugs. We have to get to the root of the problem.
If you don't fix what's causing it, you don't fix what's or deal with what's causing you to have these feelings.
Like I said, they're warning lights. And when you start feeling the anxiety, the depression, so when you need to get on your knees and pray to God and read his word, pray to God and ask him to help you.
Figure out why and what you figure out why what things are causing this.
Are these feelings and you understand that you can deal with them, but we can't mask it anymore.
Same way. We're telling people the truth about Jesus Christ and who he is.
You know, we have to not be misunderstood. We have to do it from a place of love when we speak the truth into non believers or people who have not who have never heard Jesus.
Because God's word is the truth.
And he sees everything. Right. And just like we talked about before.
He there's no substitute for reading the Bible, being in your Bible, learning who God the Father is, seeing who Jesus Christ is.
And in learning who the Holy Spirit is and how he helps us. It's not an end. He's a he.
You know, but we have to do. We can't water down God's truth either.
We can't make it so minimal that it's not effective.
And I think as humans, we tend to do that.
We tend to bring God to our level, which can't even begin to happen.
We try to form the image of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit that we want that's appeasing to us when we're told totally wrong.
We're not even in the truth zone at that time.
You know, and there's a lot of churches out there that do bring it down because they're more worried about getting people in the door than they are.
And building bigger buildings than they are speaking the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching them who God really is.
You know, going back to God's word, you know, we have to use the truth, love and truth.
Through which is God's word, the Bible as Second Timothy three, 16th through 17th says all scripture is God breathe.
Oh, excuse me. All scripture is breath out of God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction and for training in righteousness.
That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
So we know God is truth. God is love.
His word, the Bible is good for everything we need in this life.
Right.
The beginning wisdom is fear of the Lord, right?
The fear that we know and we've seen what God can do.
I mean, you can part the Red Sea. You can cause the earth to flood for 40 days.
You can kill the firstborn of every Egyptian to free your people.
And we don't want to believe his word.
We want to minimize that because we're scared.
Well, you ought to be scared, but scared in a good way.
You know, that's another show, too.
But, you know, we forget sometimes the power of God.
We only want to see the good part of it.
And the truth of the matter is we have a have a wrathful God.
You know, Jesus changed that to show us the other side, the relational side of God to us through Jesus Christ.
And we understand that.
But, you know, like I said, I'm not big on revelation, but what I read, I don't understand.
But if we don't have a wrathful God, then what is the book of Revelation?
It's not a pretty, pretty sight for the book of Revelation and for the nonbelievers.
Or the ones who think they're believers, but because they've chosen to not tell the truth or learn the truth about Jesus and who he really is and minimize him and make him an image or something.
He's not.
Then, oh, man, we are.
We are.
We're not going to be happy.
Um, so men, as to wrap, I guess, all of this up is that we have to learn to speak Jesus.
The truth of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in a manner that glorifies and honors.
The love that we have for our triune God.
We have to learn his word in order for us to out of love, share it with everyone that he puts in front of us.
We can't.
Present God's word.
I mean, we must present God's word, his truth, the only truth, the only true truth.
But like I said, we have to do it out of love and not a position of being right for us for the satisfyer pride or our wants or our needs.
It must be a love for teaching others the peace, the joy that they can have in their lives when they accept Jesus Christ.
Does it call him with a cost?
Yeah, and we can't hide that fact.
You can't just tell him, hey, say a few words, you know, following Jesus comes with a cost.
Any reward worth having in this life comes with a cost.
But the cost that we give to Jesus is the burden.
I mean, we're going to have troubles.
Yeah, but with hope and knowing that God is with you and if we have to look at suffering in a way that, you know, nobody wants to go through suffering.
But if we look at it in a way that at the end, we're going to be better for it.
We're going to be better for the people around us.
We're going to honor God and going through that suffering and in the eternal picture.
Then our reward would be greater than anything we could imagine here on this earth.
And I think that's kind of what we lose sight of is the truth that God has promised us.
We follow him.
We do.
We follow his commands.
We live our life in a way that is honoring and glorifying to the kingdom.
Not in our watered down version, but the true version of who God is and what Jesus who Jesus is and the Holy Spirit leading us and depending on the Holy Spirit to lead us in God, us in that manner.
That's honoring God and we're speaking the truth.
So, you know, just remember that.
Speak it out of love.
Have no other notion in your heart than when you're telling the truth that it's for God's glory.
And if we look at it for that, I think it takes a lot of the pride and the selfish game that sometimes we use the truth for.
You see the politics going on right now and there's very little truth.
But the truth can be spoken in a way.
And with authority that God gives us when we are faithful to his word and use his word for the teaching and rebuking and correcting and for the righteousness can be said in a way.
And if we're honoring God in that way, his truth is that he will, he will, he will.
It will work.
He'll glorify it because it's honoring him.
So that, you know, that's the truth.
So when we're speaking the truth and believe me, I know how hard it is not to do it for a selfish purpose, especially in today's world where there's so many lost people that we have to speak the name of Jesus out of love.
But we also have to speak his truth and his truth is not always easy to hear.
But when we do it with a loving and compassionate heart, because we do have that true love of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit in us, then we start to make a difference.
And so we're not misunderstood in this world.
I know I've been misunderstood telling the truth because I've said it with other intentions.
And I think we all have, even though it needed to be said, it was in the manner.
I don't think I did not present it in a manner that was loving, honoring of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father.
I mean, all three of them, right? It wasn't honoring in any of that.
So, you know, I can only repent and ask God to strengthen me and to grow me in a way that he glorifies him to help strengthen me and to take that selfishness and that pride out of my heart so that can honor him in speaking the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
So I hope that helps.
I'm not, you know, that's a tough one.
But I think the key also in not being misunderstood is to stand firm and not give up on that truth.
And no matter how bleak it looks, while we're standing in that truth that we rely on God and we continue to live our lives in a godly fashion so others see that that builds the trust of our word and the importance of our word through our actions, more so than the things we say or the actions that we back it up by.
We can stand on God's word and glorify God and all we do through those actions.
Then we're going to be okay, man.
Again, hope that helps.
God continues to work in your life this week and through the weekend and he puts tons of people in your in your path so that you can speak the truth in love over them and not be misunderstood.
I asked that his truth and our lives never be not spoken, not to be misunderstood, but to be understood from the heart to the mind and to the mind to the heart.
So have a great week, men.
And remember, we're on social media. You can go to we're on Facebook and Instagram, Twitter at the call of men.
Also, if you have prayers, questions or any subject that you might have an idea about, send me an email at the call of men, the call of men show at gmail.com.
Also, you can go to www.thecallofmen.com.
Again, man, I just ask that God blesses your life and gives you the power and strength to step out and speak the truth in love.
And as you do what you do this week, answer the call of men.