God is love, and we are to be, also. This daily devotion looks at how Paul tells us to do that.
Nuggets
- Love is to be genuine.
- Love is expressed by hating evil.
- Love is expressed by doing that which is good
- Love is expressed by considering others family.
- Love is expressed by holding others in high esteem.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Transformed to Perfection series
Paul had been talking about unity in the last couple of verses. He goes on to tell us how that unity is formed – through love.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Let's Put It into Context #2
• Good, in the biblical sense, is the workings of God within His people.
• Evil is equated with sin because it is that which goes against God and His purposes.
Loving the Right Way
“Let love be without hypocrisy …” (Rom. 12: 9 CSB)
Love is to be genuine.
What Paul is saying here is his readers should stop play acting at being loving. Instead, Lyth said our interactions with other should be full of honesty, purity, and kindness.
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Love has to be displayed in our actions. If our words of love differ from our actions, then our words are only manipulation.
Disciples, on the other hand, are to be known for their love. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13: 35 ESV).
I don’t think this is just talking actions, though. I think this gets down to motive. Why are we loving?
Do we have ulterior motives? Are we trying to manipulate the situation through the pretense of love?
The duality of personalities is not that for what God is looking. He is not looking for us to portray ourselves as someone we are not.
It is no fun to realize a relationship was based on a delusion. It is bad enough when that happens with an acquaintance. When the person plays at being loving — and then we find out they really don’t — it is devastating.
I keep thinking it is bad enough when someone portrays that a relationship that is — at a minimum — a good relationship, and it isn’t. But when the deception actually masks hatred for the other, it is really sad.
But there is a continuum between the love and hate. Beecher gave examples of spouses placating the other by actions where they really didn’t feel the emotion they were portraying. For example, one spouse could perform acts of affection while still feeling anger.
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We are commanded to love one another. “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Rom. 13: 8-9 ESV).
Yes, that summary is the second greatest commandment.
Glossary
This is particularly true in our relationship with God. He doesn’t want us playing at godliness. He wants us to be godly.
Those disciples who do not have a genuine relationship with God will find themselves outside Heaven. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt. 7: 21 CSB).
Girdlestone listed some ways in which we show our love to God. He wrote, “By prayers, praises, honouring God’s Word and day and ordinances.”
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These have to get to the heart level. God will not accept just an outward conversion. He is expecting our character to be changed.
Love as Opposed to Evil
“… Detest evil …” (Rom. 12: 9 CSB)
Love is expressed by hating evil.
I think we’ve done ourselves a disservice by translating the word as hate. To me, that could be considered a surface dislike.
It is our human nature to want to take the “badness” out of sin. We want to, instead, see what sins we can get away with. We want to see how close we can get without sinning.
Doesn’t. Work. That. Way.
Gairdlestone said it this way. He wrote, “Questions often arise as to whether it is fitting for a Christian to partake of this amusement, to engage in that employment, or to enter into the other company. In such discussions many argue as if it were desirable to take all the liberty they can. And frequently they act on the presumption that what is easy to argue is safe also to do. But how different would be their conclusion if they would but bear this text in mind!”
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God wants us to do a complete 180 degree turn from hate. Love is the direct opposite.
If we abhor evil, we are disgusted with it. We not only feel a distaste toward the evil, but we are also revolted by it.
Being revolted by sin does not mesh with the worldview’s definition of tolerance in love. We need to follow God’s definition.
Family Churchman gave us a good list of sins also on a continuum.
- “Trivial sins as well as great.
- “Secret as well as public.
- “Personal as well as social.
- “In thought as well as in act.”
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Bell made a great observation. He wrote, “It is the peculiarity of Christianity that while it aims to exclude all sin from the heart, it does not dismember the soul by excluding from it any faculty that is natural to it. Of these hatred is one — one terribly liable to abuse, but rightly used a potent instrument in the suppression of evil.”
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I know, right? If God doesn’t want us to sin, why didn’t He take out our ability to sin?
Well, God didn’t remove our ability to sin so we would continue to exercise our free will. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.
God isn’t a dictator. He will allow us to continue choosing Him.
We have to remember that God has already conquered sin. “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (I Jn. 3: 8 ESV).
God has conquered sin and is teaching how to do the same. Bell said that is what sanctification is — separation from evil — in all areas.
Trench reminded us that sin has a burden associated with it. Back when we were talking about the Beatitudes, we said that, when we sin, we should mourn that we have broken God’s laws and commandments. We should be sad that we were not obedient as God expects — that we keep sinning.
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The burden is so great that we cry out in pain because we were disobedient to God. That is, to me, what abhorring evil means.
We are also to be burdened with the sins of others. We are given our marching orders to help them see the need to confess their sins.
We have to make sure we are doing the hate right. It says hate sin. It does not say hate the sinner.
It is imperative that we hate sin. We won’t be pure until we do.
Good as Opposed to Evil
“… cling to what is good” (Rom. 12: 9 CSB)
Love is expressed by doing that which is good.
When we cut something out of our lives, it is important to have something ready to fill that space. We should replace the evil with good.
It is important to remember that, just as evil means sin, good means purity.
Girdlestone told exactly what good is. He wrote, “Whatsoever our Lord has revealed to be believed, commanded to be done, given to be obtained on earth, or promised to be enjoyed in heaven, this is that which is good; this is that which we should so love as to cleave to it with the most fond and persevering affection.”
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What we have to always consider is that it is easy to do good for a while. God is calling us to good for eternity.
A big part of goodness is sincerity. Yep, no duplicity here.
We need to bag the love with pretense. How should we love God, then?
“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mt. 22: 35-39 ESV).
We have to love God with every fiber of our being. Brady wrote that we are to love ourselves and our neighbors in the same way.
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Paul told us to cling to the good. That means, according to Beveridge, we need to approve of and desire good.
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We are told to always be good. But that is logical. If good means doing God’s Will, then that means we are to live our lives following His laws and commandments.
The Intensity of the Love
“… Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters …” (Rom. 12: 10 CSB)
Love is expressed by considering others family.
What Paul is talking about here is a mutual love. It comes from our piety. Piety is defined as the persistent application of moral virtues to our lives because of our
supreme love for God.
Yes, our love stems from God. It doesn’t come from us. It definitely doesn’t come from this world.
Love comes from God. Hargreaves put it this way. He wrote, “All men ought to love each other as men because brethren by Adam. The world is one common family, split up by sin, but to be united again by Christian love.” There are two big takeaways in that.
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The first take away is we are all the same. Regardless of our race and ethnicity, we are all children of Adam. We are one big family.
But that is part of the problem. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. That split the family in two.
Sin split the family into two. We are now sinners and former sinners.
There is hope. We can all be reunited when the sinners ABCD.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Yes, God wants us to love all. That is because we are showing all that He loves them.
How Love Is Shown
“… Take the lead in honoring one another” (Rom. 12: 10 CSB)
Love is expressed by holding others in high esteem.
Hargreaves noted we should try to outdo each other in giving honor. If we honor another before us, it cuts down on our unkind speech.
Unfortunately, too many times we are too caught up in getting the honor. Instead, we need to cultivate our humility.
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Instead of finding fault with others, we should find what is right and acknowledge that.
Making the Connections
This is important, guys. Don’t miss this.
“If we love our brothers and sisters who are believers, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead” (I Jn. 3: 14 NLT).
An exhibit of our conversion is our love.
But look who it says are the objects of our love — fellow disciples. Not sinners. Believers.
How Do We Apply This?
- Desist if we have even the slightest suspicion that some conduct could be a sin.
- Don’t try to compromise with sin. We can’t control it.
- Bag resentment to others.
- Work on our humility.
- Be kind and courteous to others.
- By being patient with and forgiving to others.
- Pray for others.
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God calls us too imitate Him. If He is love, that means we need to love, too.
Father God. You have shown us love in so many ways. Help us to show that love to others. Amen.
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