Usually, when we watch a movie we are introduced to a hero or heroic group to root for. We want the “good guy” to win and the “bad guy” to lose. We need to see Batman defeat the Joker or 007 to defeat the agents of SPECTRE.

Occasionally, though, the filmmaker sneaks one by us and we find ourselves rooting for the anti-hero. The show Breaking Bad did an outstanding job of getting us to root for Walter White who morphed from being an ordinary hard-working science teacher husband and dad to Heisenberg, the drug kingpin of the southwest who poisoned people with his methamphetamine creation.

I recently saw someone post on Reddit that he realized later in life that the movie Top Gun had us rooting for Maverick instead of Ice Man when clearly Ice Man was the far better pilot and person. “Iceman was the only pilot that: actually obeyed the rules, was a skilled flier, never killed anybody in the entire movie and correctly identified all of Maverick's faults.” Yet we were all rooting for Maverick.

To that, I will simply add that I can’t imagine why anyone would ever root for the evil New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, or Alabama Crimson Tide. (I’ll stop before I make some more lifelong enemies).

The spirit of this age is constantly working to pull people away from finding joy in truth. The Bible contains an epic story about our hero, a loving God who creates a place where everything is good and populates it with people in his divine image to care for the earth, who are opposed by those he created. But God loves this creation so much that he will stop at nothing to find ways to rescue and restore that which is lost and broken and corrupt.

We are currently living amidst the ongoing battle against that which is true and right. People are daily undermining what is good and just and loving and claiming that that which is evil and corrupt is good, and that which is good and holy is evil.

For Paul, true love does not root for the villain or the anti-hero. True love does not rejoice that evil is victorious. True love finds its joy in the truth that is consistent with God and God’s love.

Jesus predicted that before the end of this age, there would be a decrease in love. In Matthew 24:12 Jesus says: “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” When people reject what is true and right, when people reject the ways that God lays before us to keep a rightly ordered society, it will result in a loss of love. Lovelessness is the natural outgrowth of lawlessness.

Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6). If you want to have true life, you have to follow the path of Jesus, the path of truth. Paul says essentially, you can’t find love if you reject God’s truth. You can’t truly love God and love people if you don’t love God’s truth.

Today, ask yourself, “Are there things in my life that I know are the opposite of God’s truth?” If you answer “yes”, you must be willing to reorient your life to pursue God’s truth and rejoice in God’s truth to practice true love.