The way people sometimes speak and act, I wonder if there are only two options for church planters. Social gospel guys or preaching robots. Either they are someone who is trying to make the church a soup kitchen or they attack anything that moves.

Can’t there a better way than this?

There is. And it starts with this. If we say that we are passionate about the truth, we need to look long and hard at the one who is Truth, Jesus. We need to see the Creator becoming a servant on the very earth He created. We need to watch as He serves not only His glorious Father but also His unworthy creatures. We need to listen as He speaks to them and weeps with them. We need to notice just how far his love for people took him, all the way to dying on a cross in their place. Is there any limit to Christ’s self-sacrificing love? Can you think of anything more shocking than this? That the dearly loved Son of God would care so deeply for the stubborn rebellious enemies of God that He would gladly choose to bear the wrath of God so that these enemies could enter into fellowship with God as dearly loved children too!

We need to see Jesus like this, because Jesus like this, is our example. Imitate me, Paul says, as I imitate Christ. This is who we say we follow. We serve a Savior whose heart was broken by the needs of people and whose body was broken for their good and something is drastically broken in our hearts if we say we are passionate about the truth while we are not compassionate towards people. How dare we claim to represent Jesus without being deeply and emotionally concerned about the good of the people He came to save?

Passion for truth has to produce compassion for people. Not just in theory. Not just when we are behind a pulpit. But for actual real life people.

It is important to be right but something is definitely not right if we don’t feel deeply for people the way Jesus did.