A LESSON ON CHRISTIAN LOVE

Romans 12:9 Love must be ⁹ without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. 12:10 Be devoted to one another with mutual love, showing eagerness in honoring one another. 12:11 Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord. 12:12 Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer. 12:13 Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality. 12:14 Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 12:16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. ¹⁰ Do not be conceited. ¹¹ 12:17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil; consider what is good before all people. ¹² 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people. ¹³ 12:19 Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to God’s wrath, ¹⁴ for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” ¹⁵ says the Lord. 12:20 Rather, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing this you will be heaping burning coals on his head. ¹⁶ 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. NET http://bible.org

While this scripture gives us a guideline of how to treat others, it also teaches us how not to treat others. The very first words ... Love must be without hypocrisy is really what the rest of it is about. As fallen souls we have a propensity to use this word 'love' to suite our own desires. We want to 'love' with stipulation; we want to 'love' those who live up to our expectations. certainly we don't want to show 'love' to those who have done wrong things to us, and when we do treat them well, quite often we do it with the desire for God to heap burning coals on their heads (a twisting of the actual verse that says to leave it to God).

These verses call us to examine if we are loving with the love of Christ or with some man made perversion of the word 'love'. Do you love without hypocrisy?

GOD IS LISTENING!

My husband, who suffers COPD, announced this morning as he was getting ready for his day and struggling for breath, "I have decided I am going to become a strength trainer."

I began laughing, almost uncontrollably, and said, "Oh yes, and I am going to teach women how to be beautiful without makeup." Now this only makes since if you know that all of my life I have said that I start the day without a face at all and then draw it on. I am very pale and have white eyebrows and white eyelashes. Not what I would call a natural beauty by worldly standards.

That being said, I had already opened my Bible to - I Peter 3 before the conversation started to read a verse I was looking for down toward the bottom of the chapter. My husband walked into the bathroom and I decided it would not be right not to read the entire chapter and this is what the text I began with said:
I Peter 3:1-7
3:1 In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then, ¹ even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, ² 3:2 when they see your pure and reverent conduct. ³ 3:3 Let your ⁴ beauty ⁵ not be external – the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry ⁶ or fine clothes – 3:4 but the inner person ⁷ of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. 3:5 For in the same way the holy women who hoped in God long ago adorned themselves by being subject to their husbands, 3:6 like Sarah who obeyed ⁸ Abraham, calling him lord. You become her children ⁹ when you do what is good and have no fear in doing so. ¹⁰ 3:7 Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as the weaker partners ¹¹ and show them honor as fellow heirs of the grace of life. In this way nothing will hinder your prayers. <sup>12 NET http://bible.org

Again I began to giggle and thanked God, not only for the lesson involved, but also for showing me a side of Himself that often catches us off guard - His blessing of a sense of humor. I often pray that when people look at me they see God's love and not me at all and if you think about it, that is exactly what the first 6 verses of this chapter says is real beauty.

With that said, we must always watch and listen for what God is telling us and how He is correcting our thinking and our words. He is listening!


Until He Comes or until I go,
Nikki</sup>