Speak the truth and create peace



These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace. Zechariah 8:16 (ESV)

Speak the truth and create peace. That is the basic attitude towards people. Doing good is a decree of God, not a maybe. In this, our relationship with God and our relationships with fellow human beings play a decisive role in his benevolence.

1. Live authentically

Our words can delight or sadden. Words have power. Everything I say must be true. But not everything that is true must I say.

The writer Max Frisch writes: We should not slap the truth in our counterpart's face like a wet towel, but offer it to him like a coat he can slip into.



2. Blessing of Truth

Truth always wants to help, but also to confront. The Bible tells us the truth about God and us humans, about the world, about the beginning and the end. For us today under the new covenant, this means that God's heart is set on 'doing good'.

A poor pastor got on a bus and paid for his ticket. When he arrived at his seat, he counted the change and discovered that he had been given too much. He thought briefly about whether he should keep the money or not, then he went to the driver and said, 'You gave me too much change and I want to return it to you.' 'I know,' said the driver, 'I was at your church yesterday and heard you preach about the commandment You shall not steal, and I wanted to see if you also live by what you say!'


How good that the pastor had been honest, even though he probably would have liked to keep the money.


3. Jesus is the truth and the way to the Father

He says to his disciples, on the evening before his crucifixion:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (ESV)

He definitively showed that on the cross and in the resurrection.



Jesus explains with this that he himself is neither the law nor a ritual. Through Christ we are perfectly reconciled and are therefore in lasting fellowship with God.


4. Closing words

As reconciled people, we do not live to earn closeness to God, but because we have always been loved and are one with Christ. We can forgive and create peace as well as speak clearly without fear and guilt.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. Ephesians 4:15 (ESV)

Our fellow humans hardly read the Bible anymore, but they read in our lives every day. We are a living letter of God, let us never forget that!


5. Chorus - According to Psalm 19:15 (SCH2000)

Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight, O Lord!
O Lord, my strength! O Lord, my life!



Author: Egon Waechter

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