When we are unwilling to speak into another’s life, in some sense we hate them as well.

We may not hate them as much as we hate a murderous ungodly regime. But we hate them nonetheless. We don’t love them as much as we love ourselves.

I believe the main reason we aren’t willing to speak into another’s life whether it be for correction or with the gospel is because we love ourselves more. We love our position, our comfort, our status, our life more than we love another. When we say things like,

“I know I should say something to my friend but I don’t want to ruin my friendship.”

OR

“I know I should seek to engage my neighbor with the gospel, but I don’t want to mess up the community we have. They are good neighbors and I don’t want to create any difficulty or uncomfortableness between us.”

When we say those things, we aren’t saying them out of love for our neighbors or our friends. We say them out of love for self.

When we prize self-comfort over speaking the truth, we don’t love our neighbors we actually hate our neighbors because we are leaving them to face God’s wrath.