Love in Action - Part I - Romans 12

⁹ Love must be sincere. 

I tend to think that this first sentence in verse 9 is a following description to showing mercy to others cheerfully.  Our love for others, and ourselves, must be real.  A feigned affection is a lie.  People have a particular disdain for liars.  No one likes to be spammed.  No one wants to realize they’ve paid for junk when they were told it was a good product.  And no one wants to believe you really care about them when you don’t.  Humans are very good at detecting this insincerity in others.  The difference is usually in the followed actions that show that love.

The word hypocrite means to play a part.  In acting you get your cue then you say the right thing at the right time.  The Greek word for a stage actor is hupokrites and this is the origin of our word hypocrite.  It is a person who pretends or acts like they have virtues, morals, or religious beliefs that they don’t actually possess.  Or it is a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude which they do not practice in their private life.

A believer following Jesus must be genuine because the Holy Spirit is working from within, transforming his/her life by “renewing” the mind.  Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”  Believers can be changed into an image similar that appears as the glory of the Lord.  The minute that we assume a pose and pretend to be something for the acceptance of the world it becomes impossible for us to know the will of God.  But if we yield to God, if we let what He has created in us on the inside become what we are on the outside, the will of God for the believer becomes good and fits us exactly.  Our will and God’s will become matched.  It is wonderful not to have to act the part of being Christian, but just be natural and let the Spirit of God move and work through you.  This is where you find joy and content.

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Be purposeful in what is important to you.  Hate what is against God.  Despise what isn’t of God, for God, or following God.  If something is pulling you away from God, despise it, do not take joy in it. 

Instead, grab hold of what is good and hang on!  Don’t let it escape your grasp.  “Cling” or “cleave” to it as though it is a life line.  Be stuck to what is good, welded or cemented to it.

 ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Since we belong to one another as fellow members of the body, let us be devoted to one another.   “Love the brethren in the faith as though they were brethren in blood (Farrar).”  Do it in love, sincere love, for the other.  Respect one another, lift them up as more important than yourself.  As said earlier, do not think more highly of yourself, but think more highly of one another.

 ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

If there is one thing I could use more of, it is zeal in spiritual work.  It is so very easy to get discouraged and doubtful with regard to the results of your effort.  This makes it hard to have an excitement, an internal fire, in doing the work of God. 

At one point, Paul was a prisoner, was stuck at sea in a storm and had not eaten for 14 days, then he was shipwrecked, and then he got bit by a snake trying to build a fire.  How much zeal would you have at that point?  Would you have been discouraged and doubtful with regard to why God still had you alive?  Would you be wondering what the point was to keep going on?  Yet, Paul defied death by not getting sick from the snakebite and through it all was able to witness and testify and be an image of the glory of God by saving all his shipmates and the leader of the people on the island. 

Paul instructs us not to just try to have some zeal, but to never be lacking in it.  It should always be a part of our effort and emotion.  How is your zeal, your spiritual fervor?  What can be done to make it never lacking?

Does everything we do in zeal and fervor serve the Lord?  When we are doing our day-to-day business, are we looking at how it serves the Lord?  When we communicate with others, are we looking at how it serves the Lord?  When we live closely with our wives and children, are we looking at how it serves the Lord?

 ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

The first part and the last part of this verse are bookends to the middle.  During affliction be patient, but wrap it with a joyful hope while being faithful in prayer.  There should be an internal satisfaction in our hope knowing God has a perfect plan and we are a part of it.  I don’t understand it, but I have hope because God loved so much He sent Jesus.  And I’ll be faithful in my prayer, acting upon my hope, seeking conversation with God. 

Our circumstances may not warrant rejoicing.  Certainly, Paul’s were not, yet we know that our future is held in the strong and secure hands of God.  His promises are not slack.  Our problems or troubles have come to pass, they have not come to stay.