Jesus never held back. He was brutally honest in all his dealings with everyone. The woman at the well he was hard with - calling her out on the number of husbands she'd had and the fact that she now was living with a man she wasn't married to.
He was hardest on the pharisees, blind guides leading others into the pit.
But all his bluntness was delivered from a place of Love. Brutal, total and unashamed Love.
We try t emulate the "honesty" but miss the motive. We point out the flaws in our friends, celebrities, strangers and everyone but ourselves, but the motivation is rarely Love. It's usually self-righteousness.
We need to be brutally honest with ourselves before we can be honest to any degree with others. We need to turn the spotlight onto ourselves and ignore the World and it's standards. We need to line our lives up with the known Will of God before we can line our neighbours up.
It's difficult. Looking at our attitudes and behaviours through God's eyes is to cast a stone into a pond that will cause a tidal wave of repercussions. If we truly seek God's face, ask Him to be brutally honest with us so we can be more like Him, then we need to brace for an ugly picture of how we are in comparison to Him. His standards are not ours. Yes, we are covered by the blood of Jesus - thankfully - but we need to remember that the covering of the blood will only make a difference as far as we allow it to. There's no point in accepting the covering and continuing with viewing porn, having an affair, coveting next-door's car or flower-bed. It gives us nothing.
Paul describes the benefits in 1 Corinthians 13 where he outlines the purpose of Love. Not boastful. Not full of itself. Sacrificial. It considers others first and is not judgemental. But it is honest.
Brutally so.
We need to seek to manifest that Love so we can be brutally honest in His image.
That kind of brutal honesty draws people to the cross. Self-righteousness drives them away.
