There are few things in life more shameful than sleeping when you ought to be working, or slacking off when you ought to be diligent. When your calling is to be active, it is inappropriate and even sinful to remain passive. This is especially true when it comes to contexts that are of the highest importance and the greatest urgency.

I sometimes wonder if the closing paragraph of Romans 13 is one of those sections we tend to overlook a little bit. It’s sandwiched between controversial passages that receive a great deal of attention—one explaining how Christians are to relate to civil government and one explaining how Christians are to behave when they disagree on the kind of freedom the gospel brings.
In the middle of these two passages we find Paul sounding a kind of alarm and urging Christians to understand and respond appropriately to the context we live in. “You know the time,” he says, “that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand.”
“You know the time,” he says. He means that we know the context we have been called to live in. It’s a context in which Christ has ascended but not yet returned. His Commission has been given but not yet been rescinded or completed. Hence it is a context in which we have sacred duties to fulfill. There is a certain kind of life God calls us to live here and now. The alarm bell rings to wake us, to stir us, to provoke us to consider whether we are living in the way God has commanded us.
To convey this sense of urgency, Paul offers a little illustration. “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” We are meant to imagine that we have endured a long night, but finally daytime is almost here. And when the day comes, so will the end, for when the sun breaks across the sky, Christ will return. And already the sky is beginning to brighten and the first birds are beginning to stir. This means that the time is short. There is a sense of urgency—a sense of “now or never.”
So what is this urgent task? What is it that God means for us to do? By looking at the immediate context we can see that the task is love—to love others in the way Christ has loved us. “Love one another with brotherly affection … Outdo one another in showing honor … Owe no one anything, except to love each other … Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” In other words, we are to believe and internalize all the glorious doctrine that has been taught in the book of Romans, and to apply it to loving other people. The gospel calls us to love with all the fervency with which Christ loved us. We are to make it the goal of our lives to bring glory to God by doing good to the people he has made in his image. A life committed to the doctrine of Romans is a life marked by love.
Is that the life you’re living? Are you committing your time, your talents, your energy, your enthusiasm, your creativity, your everything to loving others? Can you say that you are fully awake to this urgent, now-or-never task of loving your neighbor as yourself?
“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed,” Paul says. It’s like he wants you to imagine a timeline with the day you came to Christ on one side and your own death or Christ’s return on the other. You may not know how much time remains before the end, but you do know how much time has elapsed since you became a Christian. And Paul prompts you to consider: What you have done with that time? How you have used it? How have you stewarded it?

There are few things in life more shameful than sleeping when you ought to be working, or slacking off when you ought to be diligent. And right now, he says, is the time for work, the time for diligence, the time for love. He asks you: Is that the way you’re living your life?

My gratitude goes to BJU for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about their upcoming CoRE Conference which will appeal especially to those involved in counseling.

Yesterday I shared a long list of Black Friday deals. I updated the list a number of times throughout the day and most of the deals remain active through the weekend. There are a few Kindle deals as well.
Find Your Fathers in Christ: Advice for Younger Men
“Over the last twenty years, I’ve had several great fathers in the faith. These men of God reached down to invest in me, and were far enough ahead of me that they could guide, challenge, and spur me on.” Marshall tells what he learned from them and encourages young men to find similar mentors.
How to Prevent a Spiritually Dry December
Ryan Higginbottom: “While there’s nothing wrong with any of these seasonal extras, here’s the truth I tend to miss. My experience of Christmas will be far deeper and more joyful if I’m connecting my activities to the Biblical truths of Christmas.”
Do You Know What Your Child Is Being Taught about Sex?
Jonathan Noyes says that “many public schools have settled for teaching your students what to think, not how to think. In the process, the pursuit of truth is abandoned for an ideology, and any speech against that ideology is stifled.” This being the case, it’s especially important for parents to be aware and be involved.
Bible people don’t want to say more or less than the Bible does
Stephen Kneale, who recently explained why he doesn’t believe the Bible mandates physical discipline (but rather permits it) goes on to describe a broader principle. “I think many of us are very quick to baptise and sanctify our applications, assuming the form of what we do is necessarily what scripture prescribes, when the most we can really say is this is a legitimate, permissible application rather than the specific requirement on all believers.”
Saved to Do Good and Love Others: Why I Do Homeless Ministry
“I didn’t get to share the gospel even once. I didn’t get to tell people that God loved them. That Jesus died for them. Friendly conversations would more often than not become one-sided where I couldn’t get a word in.” Despite this, Adam explains why ministry is valuable, even when it doesn’t lead to direct opportunities to share the gospel.
Biblical Manhood Versus Traditional African Manhood
“In the African traditional culture, there are a lot of things that define manhood.” This article at TGC Africa explains biblical manhood over against traditional African notions of it.
Flashback: How To Get Things Done: Deal With Interruptions
Dealing with interruptions requires an awareness that God is sovereign and you are not. When you trust a sovereign God you know that no interruption has caught God by surprise. This frees you from outbursts of anger or depths of despair.

We’re not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms. And this makes a difference. We can be at peace and we can accept. —Elisabeth Elliot

One of the most urgent biblical commands for our day—and perhaps for any day—is to speak the truth in love. Different people at different times tend to overemphasize one of the two factors and underemphasize the other so that some lean away from truth while others lean away from love. But the Lord expects that we will do both without competition or contradiction. “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way…” he says (4:15). This verse tells us that there is a thing we must do and a way we must do it. There is both an action and an attitude.
The thing we must do is speak truth, or maybe a little sharper, we must confess truth. Paul has just written about “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,” and this tells us that what we need to confess is what is true about Christ. He—his person, his work, his gospel—is to be the content of our speech, of our confession. We need to know it, believe it, guard it, and speak it to each other.
The way we must do it is in love, which means we need to acknowledge that truth can be spoken well or badly. We can confess what’s true, yet in a way that brings harm instead of blessing. We can say what is true, yet still sin as we say it. And so our calling is to speak truth in love or, to turn it around, to lovingly speak what is true.
As is so often the case in the Christian life, there is peril on both sides. On one side we can be all about the truth, but cruel and unkind. We can derive joy from fighting and busting others down. On the other side, we can be all about love, but spineless and weak. We can refuse to address even the greatest weakness or sin. Neither extreme will do and neither extreme is superior to the other. Nothing but the divine balance pleases God.
To speak truth in love means taking the time to know other people and to understand them. It means taking the time to know where they are at in their lives and in their spiritual maturity. It means taking the time to ask good questions, to listen carefully, and to prayerfully consider the right truth for the right time.
The way you speak truth in love to a person who has been a Christian for weeks may be very different from a person who has been a Christian for decades. The way you speak truth in love to a person who has just lost their job may be very different from a person who has just gotten a big raise. The way you speak truth in love to someone who has just committed an offense in ignorance may be very different from a person who has committed an offense in full knowledge of their sin. All truth is true, but truth can be spoken in ways that are appropriate or inappropriate, fitting or unsuitable, in ways that build up or in ways that tear down. So much depends on circumstance.
Maybe someone has exhibited a sinful behavior and you are frustrated and angry about it, so you hastily quote a Bible passage that calls them to repent. But you don’t account for them being a new Christian or being in a time of deep grief. That doesn’t excuse their sin, but it might explain it. What you said might be true, but you have said it out of anger instead of love. You have added your sin to their sin. “Do you see a man hasty in his words?,” asks Solomon. “There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Or maybe someone tells you, “This week I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.” And you pipe up to say, “But the Bible says ‘do not be anxious about anything.’” Those words are true, but it is unloving to offer a trite solution to a complex problem. It is unloving to speak harsh truth to a heavy heart. Solomon says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
The challenge ever and always is to hold truth and love together and never to emphasize one at the expense of the other. We trust this is possible because God is truth and God is love. He is the source of both, and in him there is never the least competition or contradiction between the two. Our calling, then, is to imitate him, to be equally truthful and loving, to regard the two as the closest of companions and the best of friends.