HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 2, 2025 – A love of the truth, the desire for truth, the need for truth – these all exist at a gut level in those who love God. Where there is no love for the truth, there can be no love for God. Without a love for the truth, there can be a seeming love for God, a casual affection for God, but no genuine love. Only those who have a love for the truth can genuinely love God.

There’s a reason why the first Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. God made it the first Commandment, because if we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, the other Commandments will be easy for us to keep. By “easy to keep”, I mean self-evident. It’s self-evident that if we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we’ll keep his Commandments. It would be self-contradictory for us not to keep them.

I’ve been talking about love for the truth in the past few articles because love for the truth is central to our reality as born-again believers, and I don’t think it gets enough press. Love, of course, gets lots of press, but love for the truth often gets pushed to the side, being the plain-speaking and so less desirable sister. We’re taught by the worldly church to love everyone without distinction, but rarely are we encouraged to speak God’s truth at all costs. This is a great failing on the part of the worldly church, not to emphasize the primacy of love for the truth.

God is Truth and the sole source of it, and so to have a love for the truth is to love God (even if you don’t believe he exists). When Jesus started his ministry, the first thing he did was to leave everything and everyone behind. And why did he do that? Because worldly values and love for the truth cannot peacefully co-exist. If you have a genuine love for the truth, you cannot compromise, and the world requires constant compromise.

Jesus’ first disciples likewise had to choose between the world and love for the truth. Thank God they chose truth! As soon as Jesus called them, they left everything and everyone behind, understanding that there could be no compromise in Kingdom work.

I am deeply saddened when I hear words like “diplomacy” and “tolerance” being used to describe Christians’ interactions with the world. These words have never been used to describe Jesus’ interactions and so should never be used to describe the interactions of those who claim to be Jesus’ followers. We cannot be diplomatic and tolerant and have a love for the truth at the same time. Diplomacy and tolerance are worldly values, not Kingdom values.

Like the early Church, we born-again believers can have a certain degree of community with each other, but only if it’s predicated on a love for the truth. I’ve made it my mission on this blog not to compromise, not to be diplomatic, and not to be tolerant of untruths, which has not made me many friends. But I’m not looking to make friends here, at least not at the cost of compromising my love for the truth. I have friends enough in the heavenly realm. It’s more important that I speak God’s truth, and God’s truth cannot be compromised to spare someone’s feelings.

Jesus never once minced his words, even if it meant he trampled on people’s sensibilities. In this, as in everything else, we’re to follow Jesus’ lead. I don’t mean we should be purposely cruel for the sake of cruelty. No. I mean that we should speak God’s truth uncompromisingly, as all God’s prophets have done throughout the ages, and that we should speak God’s truth regardless of the cost. It’s the high price of discipleship that lost Jesus most of his early followers and it’s still losing him followers today. Who wants to live poor, outcast, mocked, despised, and out of synch with the world?

I do, if that’s what it takes to stay loyal to God.

I’m happy for them to say at my passing: “I never liked her. I’m glad she’s gone”, if before their own passing they say: “She was right.”