Have you ever felt insincere love? My grandson (who is 4 but has significant speech delays) says “love you grandma. Popsicle?” It’s not that he doesn’t love me, but his expression of love seems insincere when he is expressing it right before he asks for something.
Paul is encouraging all of us in the first part of Romans 12:9 to make sure that our love is sincere.
The word sincere means, "free from pretense or deceit; proceeding from genuine feelings.”
Wow. That is convincing and challenging because there are many times in life where our genuine feelings are not of love towards a person. And yet Paul is exhorting us with the words love MUST be sincere.
C.S. Lewis once said something very profound. He shares his solution to this issue:
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”
That’s my challenge for all of us today. If you are struggling with not having loving feelings about someone, then behave as if you do and the feelings will follow.
One of the ways to do that is to carry people to Jesus who loves them perfectly. Just heard this song for the first time today:
(P.S. Did you know that I was raising money for Patrick Henry Family Services -- going to the gym 100 times for at least 20 minutes to raise money for our great programs. Check it out herehttps://secure.ministrysync.com/ministrysync/event/website/?m=4433126#1).
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