Kindness and truth: I would submit that ultimately one is not effective without being paired with the other. Imagine someone who is kind, but never speaks truth. That person is a spineless individual with no moral integrity. Her character is as resilient as a wet tissue. There is no substance to her being. She is an incredibly kind person, but has no conviction and no reason for why she does things. Kindness without truth leads to moral compromise and antinomianism. On the other hand, imagine an individual who speaks truth and has strong convictions, but has no kindness. When this person speaks truth, it is without tenderness, love, and empathy. When someone receives truth and wisdom from another, it ought to feel like a garland of grace is being laid upon one's head. However, with the individual who speaks truth without kindness, it more closely resembles getting smashed in the face with a baseball bat, or at the very least, feel cold and heartless. I believe that one of the most essential aspects of relating in a Christlike manner to your fellow man is to have both kindness AND truth bound upon one's neck and written upon the tablet of one's heart. The two must not depart from one another. Remember Christ and how he spoke to the condemned prostitute: "Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you? She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said, 'I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more." We must stand boldly and unabashedly in truth, but must ensure at all cost that every pore of that truth oozes and emanates with the love of Christ.
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