Would you rather be nice or would you rather be honest? It’s an age-old question, but it’s one that is getting many Christians in trouble these days according to minister and author John Bevere. He recently sat down with the Washington Times’ Higher Ground to discuss his new book, “The Awe of God: The Astounding Way a Healthy Fear of God Can Transform Your Life,” and how the church is failing in its duty to love people by staying silent instead of speaking the truth.
Subscribe to have The Washington Times’ Higher Ground delivered to your inbox every Sunday.
“I believe right now [in the culture] we are seeing a result of the church backing off of what we’re called to do,” Mr. Bevere explained. “Jesus never said go into all the world and make disciples of all nations by being silent. He told us to preach the gospels and make disciples of all nations teaching them to do whatever we command. What it takes is us preaching truth in love when we have a heart filled with love for people as God loves people.”
The evangelist, who has been in ministry for more than four decades, says Christians need to remember what Jesus went through on the Cross to save mankind. Jesus didn’t endure torture and the most intense cruelty one can imagine because it was fun — He did it out of unconditional love.
“That’s our Creator willfully signing up because He says ‘I love people so much I want to redeem them,’” Mr. Bevere noted. “God loves people so deeply, but He takes the chance that they’re going to reject Him.”
The problem is that too often people of faith would rather keep the peace than speak the truth. But the author, who is also the co-founder of Messenger International, a ministry committed to revolutionizing global discipleship, knows from experience that a healthy fear of God requires that Christians speak words of salvation — not affirmation.
“There was a time in my life when I hated confrontation,” Mr. Bevere said. “I hated speaking contrary to what the group was thinking … I would tell people things that [were] nice even if it wasn’t true.”
And while that behavior earned him praise as a “nice guy,” Mr. Bevere soon realized that his niceness was really a fear of rejection. He was more focused on being loved by others instead of loving others the way Christ loves them.
“We can’t swing the pendulum all the way over as a church and go ‘Oh, we just kind of got to just fit in and just be nice to them, don’t confront them with truth,’” he noted. “We can encourage people, we can inspire people, but if we don’t tell them truth, they may be encouraged with a smile on their face, but they’re still going to fall off a cliff.”
After all, if Christians believe the Bible is true then they know that a judgment day is coming that will have eternal consequences. In that moment, it will no longer matter how nice someone was, or how good they felt about themselves.
“There is a very real heaven, there’s a very real hell. There’s a very real walking with God and there’s a very real walking under oppression and bondage of the devil,” Mr. Bevere declared. “We want to see people free, so as a church we’ve got to start standing up even if people call it hate speech, even if people say we don’t care, we don’t have compassion. They said the same thing about Jesus.”
Watch the rest of the interview here:
—
Marissa Mayer is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her work has been featured in Christian Post, The Daily Signal, and Intellectual Takeout. Mayer has a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Arizona State University.