Don't Fake It!

Romans 12:9-13 ESV

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”

This love, in the Greek, is Agape love, a love which comes from God and is divine love because God is love. It is a love centered in moral preference and it prefers what God prefers, which is what is holy, righteous, godly, upright, morally pure, honest, and faithful. It prefers to leave our sins behind us to follow the Lord Jesus in obedience and in a walk of faith in Christ Jesus, in his power, by the grace of God. So, it is an unselfish and a giving love.

Some people, though, who do not love will try to fake that they do, usually as a means of deception and/or manipulation and trickery. Sometimes it is because the person faking it is sinning against the other person, perhaps in committing adultery against his/her marital partner. And to try to cover up the adulteries this person will try to put on a show (a performance) of loving his spouse, but it isn’t real. For that person is still sinning against him/her.

So we need to let our love for others be genuine. Now this is not saying that we have to have warm fuzzy feelings for the ones we are to love. For we are to love even our enemies. So it is not faking it to truly love others in action who may be people who are doing evil against us. But it is faking it if we are pretending to love them while we are doing evil to them, especially when that evil is being done behind their backs in sneaky and underhanded ways.

For we are to be people of God who absolutely detest all evil, and not who fake disliking evil, or who just admit that doing evil is wrong. But we are to be people who literally break down into tears at the evil that we are seeing going on in the names of liberty and compassion and Christianity and God and religion, etc. It should break our hearts and send us to our knees (literally or figuratively) in prayer, calling out to God to rescue us.

Holding fast to what is good is living the life we are to live in Christ, in walks of holiness and righteousness and obedience to our Lord. And it is holding on to the truth and rejecting the lies, and even confronting the lies for what they are. And it is sharing the truth of the gospel of our salvation, and letting people know that Jesus died to deliver us out of our slavery to sin so we can now walk in holiness and in obedience to him.

When we love other believers in Christ with brotherly affection, we are treating our brothers and sisters in Christ as though they are literally our own family. And we should show honor to those who are walking in love and in faithfulness and in obedience to the Lord, and not in sin, and who are suffering persecution for the sake of righteousness. But we should not honor evil nor those who do evil nor those who speak lies and who tell people that they can keep walking in sin and still go to heaven when they die.

We are not to be lazy people who are unconcerned about our walks of faith or how we live, and for whom it is not essential nor important that we submit to Christ as Lord and that we obey him and that we give our lives to him as living sacrifices to do his will. But we are to be those who love the Lord and who are grateful for all he has done for us and who, thus, long to serve our Lord and to do what he has called us to do and to be.

And all of us are going to have tribulations, even the ungodly have tribulations, but those who are serving the Lord with their lives and who are walking in his ways and who are speaking the truth and not the lies are facing persecution for their commitments to the Lord and to his service. But we are to endure unjust suffering patiently, and just keep praying and just keep obeying our Lord.

And then we are to do good to those who belong to the family of God. And we are to meet one another’s legitimate needs, so this will not always involve handouts. Sometimes it will involve helping them to learn to help themselves. Teaching may be involved here. Practical lessons could be applied. Speaking the truth in love may be part of this, as well. Encouragement to the hurting can be part of this, too. But we are to love one another and not sin against one another.

Video Talk

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Love Must Be Genuine 

An Original Work / October 22, 2013

Based off Romans 12:9-21

Love must be genuine.

Hate what’s evil; cling to good.

Love each other with affection.

Show respect for ev’ryone.

Never lack in your zeal.

Serve the Lord with diligence.

Rejoice in steadfast hope.

In affliction, patient be.

Keep on praying; share with others.

Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute.

Feel with others sympathy.

Be not filled with conceit.

Daily sit at Jesus’ feet.

Live in harmony with others.

Live at peace with ev’ryone.

Repay not to someone

With the evil he begot.

Do not take your revenge;

Leave it to the wrath of God.

If your enemy is thirsty,

Give to him something to drink.

Do what’s right for mankind.

Evil: overcome with good.

https://vimeo.com/114695549