Love rejoices with the truth. Last week, I highlighted love’s not rejoicing in wrongdoing. For those of you following along, it seems like I’m about to blog about the same topic and you’re right. However, the fact that this line is also included in the text should prompt us to investigate it. Does it merely restate the aforementioned or does it speak something different? The long and the short of it that this phrase does both.

Love more than rejects. You see, love doesn’t stop at rejecting wrongdoing, it goes a step further than that and actively seeks truth. This extra step is where I see us falling short. It is one thing to reject the wrong, but a whole other then to replace that with truth in our lives. To be honest, I’ve heard this multiple times reiterated with a slightly different syntax each time, but its real meaning still is fuzzy to me. Maybe, (I could be totally off here) we don’t understand correctly what truth is in this context.

Truth has no context. Sorry, I set us both up for that. However, this is the crux of truth. You may counter with “facts” such as the world is flat, Pluto being a planet, the earth being at the center of the universe, etc. and you are right in each case. This is not what I’m arguing. We are talking about apples and oranges comparing theories and natural laws with truth. Truth, as referred to in 1 Corinthians 13:6, is the set of immutable facts of the universe. If you’ve spent more than 5 minutes on this planet, you know that nothing on earth is immutable and you’re probably aware that fact holds true for the rest of the universe. However, there is one thing, and only one, that does not change. That is God. The truth in which our souls delight is God and God alone. So what does this look like?

It’s a return to the Garden. Rejoicing in truth is returning to a time when what delighted Adam and Eve most was learning more and more about God and glorifying Him. Truth is God’s word. Truth is worship. Truth is fellowship. Truth is prayer. Rejoicing in truth is savoring each and every moment we are able to partake in any one of these privileges. It’s understanding that each is a privilege in which we shouldn’t be allowed to partake. Rejoicing in the truth is fighting for more time every day because our souls cannot get enough. It is realizing that God is greater than all else, including the gifts with which He lavishes on us.

Love is not content with rejecting ugliness, but seeks actively to create beauty in its wake. It does not rest in the void. Love seeks what is worthwhile and is glad in its purity. That purity is truth and it was, is and will always be just that. Truth should not be confused with theory or law as truth is about an unchanging God and is therefore itself unchanging. Truth ushers us back toward the Garden, reminding us of perfection that we once knew. Truth reunites us with our Love and fortifies us in a blessed fellowship caught up lovingly in His infinite arms against the nuclear ones of the world. Truth secures us in the one place that cannot be shaken so that we will be proved on that Day. A whole heart knows that love rejoices with the truth.