Introduction
In our society, the meaning of love has been categorized as primarily an emotion. Our culture has defined love as a completely feeling-based emotional concept. It is this belief that love is simply an emotion or impulse that has led many people to do unthinkable, immoral things. We tend to think of love in terms of intense feelings. We tend to think of love in terms of emotion and what’s in the heart.
But if love is simply an emotion, there are some problems. We live on our emotions and are driven by the impulses we feel. When life is good, like our wedding day or the birth of a child, our emotions are high and feel wonderful. But how about the days when we bury a parent or, even worse, a child? How about the day when you have lost a job, been in a fender bender, and your mailbox is filled with bills you are not sure how you are going to pay? How about those days when your frustration, irritation, and grief cause you to be angry with God? How do you follow the command to love God on days like that? If love is simply an emotion, are you no longer in love with God when you are angry and frustrated with Him during the rough patches in life?
We are to love God at all times, with all of our heart, mind, and soul. But how do we follow that command when our emotions toward God are anything but loving? And listen, I've been there. Been days when I was furious with God, wrapped up in my little world, angry, mad, hurt, covered in self-pity, and absolutely distraught.
Love isn't what we are feeling in those seasons and moments of life. And yet we should love Him with all our heart, with all our soul and will all our might. But our emotions are so fickle, and change more than the direction of the wind. Love can be such a vague idea, how do we know we are really in love with the LORD? And how do we respond to a command to love when love is a choice, and our emotions do not feel loving?
It is important to love the Lord because Jesus put love for God at the heart of the new covenant He established. Our relationship with God is first and primary. It is through our love relationship with God that love can flow out of our lives to others. So our relationship with God has to be real and sincere. How do we sincerely, genuinely love God?
Bible Passage
Romans 12:9-13 (ESV)
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Scriptural Analysis
Nowhere else in Paul’s writings do we find a more concise collection of ethical commands. In these five verses are thirteen exhortations ranging from love of Christians to hospitality for strangers. The series begins by calling the reader’s attention to the absolute primacy of genuine love. We are commanded to love; it is, therefore, a choice we make, a matter of the will. Paul wants to show what biblical love looks like in practice. Love must be defined in God’s terms.
Verse 9
The original word here for sincere/genuine means not hypocritical. The word “Hypocrite” was used in the Greek world to describe an actor who wore masks to portray the emotion of his character. Paul’s implication here is sincere, genuine Christians wear no masks. What you see should be what you get, and Paul says that others should see and get love. “Love” can be a vague, over-romanticized idea. One of Paul’s purposes here is to specify some types of behavior that demonstrate “sincere” love. Christian love is more than a feeling; it leads to a passionate hatred of evil and a tenacious attachment to what is good. Some might suppose that love is soft on evil. That's incorrect. Sincere love demands God-honoring moral resolve regarding good and evil. Since the word hate is a present tense imperative, verse 9 can be paraphrased: "Be constantly hating that which is evil."
Unfortunately, familiarity with a culture that is shaped by the forces of evil has lulled too many believers into a state of general tolerance for whatever deviant behavior is in vogue at present. We are to abhor evil because it is the enemy of all that leads to Christ-likeness. We are to turn away from all evil and “cling to what is good.” When the Bible tells us to flee from sin, that's not getting as close as we can without getting burned. That means to run in the other direction. Be genuine, be sincere in love and hate, and flee from evil.
Verse 10
Believers are to be loving and kind to one another in the bonds of brotherly love (v. 10). As a result of this relationship, they will not seek their own good but outdo one another in showing honor. The love of which Paul speaks is, of course, agape love, the selfless, unconditional expression of grace and compassion exemplified by the love of God for sinners. Paul's call is to echo that same kind of love.
Paul mentions love’s commitment in the Church: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves” (v. 10). The words “Be devoted” are the translation of a Greek word that combines the words for friendship love and family love. A more helpful translation is, “Be devoted with warm family affection to one another in brotherly love.” Family-type devotion to one another is more than friendship. Such love involves commitment like that experienced in good families. As a spiritual family, the church is to exhibit the love and kindness toward one another that mark the best earthly families.
Verses 11-12
As a result of this loving relationship, they will not seek their own good but outdo one another in showing honor. Christians are called to serve the Lord. This service is by no means drudgery. Servants of God continually rejoice in their hope. Paul warned us against remaining content with earthly joys and counseled us to “raise our minds to heaven that we may enjoy full and solid joy.”
Afflictions are to be handled patiently. And the source of spiritual help during such times is prayer. So Paul counseled his readers, “Steadfastly maintain the habit of prayer.” The reason is not difficult to discern. If our enemies can keep us out of touch with God, they will not have to worry about any trouble we might cause for the evil kingdom. Only the praying believer who has made a decision to be a living sacrifice can maintain zeal for God and patience in affliction.
Verse 13
Another evidence of sincere love is a person who gives generously. Jewish people believed in taking care of the needs in their community, and the Christians of Paul’s day no doubt agreed. The modern phenomenon of well-to-do and hungry Christians in the same city would have shocked the moral sensibilities of ancient Jews and Christians. In antiquity, “hospitality” meant putting up travelers in one’s home while they were in town. Travelers would normally carry letters from those trusted by their hosts, attesting that they were to be accepted as guests. In a day when inns were scarce and not always desirable, it was critical for believers to extend hospitality to Christians (and others) who were traveling. The author of Hebrews counsels hospitality to strangers on the basis that by so doing, one may, perhaps, be entertaining angels without knowing it. Paul is calling Christians to lovingly, and sacrificially, take care of others in need.
TODAY'S KEY TRUTH
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.
Few terms are as popular among Christians as the term love. And rightly so, for along with faith and hope, love is one of the most important ways of expressing what Christianity is all about. The New Testament puts love at the heart of what it means to live as a Christian. A loving relationship with God is first and primary, and our relationship with others flows from it. The problem with love, however, is that it can be a vague term. People fill it with almost any meaning they want. Particularly in a culture that thinks of love primarily as a feeling, an emotion, and something that a person can “fall” in and out of, the biblical meaning and significance of love need careful study. Biblical love, as we are constantly reminded, is not an emotion. It is an attitude, a mindset. Biblical love is devotion.
God establishes the standards of right behavior, revealed to us in Scripture. God's love inspires love for others within us. A Godlike love that loves regardless of the circumstances, a deliberate love that decides it will keep loving even if it is rebuffed. We are challenged to live out the highest love and to do so with the highest sincerity. Our love is to be genuine, not counterfeit.
"This little statement, so simple and so straightforward—“Love must be sincere/genuine”—is foundational to Christian conduct. But despite its simplicity, it is not easy to put into practice because much of our lives are shot up with hypocrisy. Our culture teaches a false image of love. The media, entertainment, and social, repeatedly present us with people pretending to experience love in a blissful state of euphoria. That portrayal of love is not accurate. In fact, it's a lie. Our culture promotes a counterfeit love that isn't real or lasting. It's an emotional-based concept. We think love is something we fall into and can fall out of. We think it's something that we have to feel for it to be real. We think love is a matter of the heart, hence the mantra of our day, "Follow your heart." That has become the promoted idea and value statement of our culture. However, the results of this emotional-based concept of love have been disastrous. Sincere love isn't an emotion. That phrase, "Follow your heart," is often the advice given to those facing decisions. The truth is that “Follow Your Heart” has ended more marriages, mutilated more bodies, destroyed more families, and ended more lives than the world would ever acknowledge or even know. The destruction left in the wake of people being told to “Follow Your Heart” is incalculable. Love isn't an emotion.
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.
Christian love has to be more than words or emotions. Christian love disdains evil. Evil isn't something we can tolerate at any level. We must hate it with a passion. There can be no truce struck with evil. There's no negotiation with God about our sins. We must constantly hate everything that is evil, and we cannot be active willing participants in it. Being willing participants in sins such as gossip, deceit, lying, immorality, selfishness, and prejudice inhibits us from being able to love God sincerely.
For Christ, there was nothing more offensive, more evil than hypocritical love. Few things brought down his wrath, like hypocrisy. For example, in Matthew 23, he said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside, they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.”
For Jesus, not many sins were more disdained than hypocrisy. Judas is universally a hated sinner because of the profound depth of his hypocrisy. That sin can be the ugliest sin of all. No sin is more destructive than hypocrisy. Hypocrisy shows itself when it tries to make the outside look better than the inside. Paul is saying real love doesn’t act this way. Let love be without hypocrisy because it isn’t love if it is hypocrisy.
Well, what is the difference between real love and this hypocritical love Paul is warning us about? Real love is demonstrated in Sacrificial Action! Real love is devotion. Love is always defined by God’s terms. God publically and definitively defined love when Christ was sacrificed on the cross. Read the accounts in the gospels of Jesus' death on the cross. That was all devotion. That was devotion despite the emotion. Jesus even expressed His emotion in the garden by asking if there could be another way. But His devotion said, "But I'll follow your will." Biblical love is not an emotion, it is a mindset. Biblical love is devotion. We are commanded to love by following the example of Christ's example of devotion to us. What God is commanding us to do is a matter of our will. We must willingly act sacrificially in love. Love is the most important way of expressing what Christianity is all about. It cannot be about emotion. It cannot be based on if we like this person this week. Likewise, it cannot be based on what you have done for me lately. It cannot be based on how my heart feels that day. It cannot be based on if you have offended me or hurt my feelings. Love must be based on what God has said is love: sacrificially devotion.
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.
Christian love is also a tenacious drive to do what is good. Too often, our drive is rooted in self-interest and pleasure. There are many times in life in doing what is good, we have to forsake what we believe is in our own self-interest. For our love of God to be sincere, we must place the highest priority on doing what is good and right. Paul insists that a sincere love of God is being devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. That phrase, brotherly love, is from the familiar Greek word Philadelphia. When combined with the previous phrase, be devoted to one another, the section can be translated, as "be lovingly loving with one another with loving love." The repetition of the same idea makes for a very strong statement: "Love fellow believers as if they were intimately associated with you as kindred." Christian love is not impersonal love based on how you're feeling. It is a love set on devotion to one another, regardless of how you might feel at the moment.
If you truly love someone, you are driven to sacrifice for this person, sometimes at your own loss, and do many things that go against your instinctive emotions. The world says that love is an emotion, which isn’t true. Love affects emotions. It creates emotions. It causes emotions. But it is not an emotion. If you truly love someone, you are driven to act sacrificially for this person. From a biblical perspective, true love is demonstrated in sacrificial service. Certainly, it is not devoid of emotion, but it is an act of the will.
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.
Conclusion
Paul shows us what it means to love God:
Flee from evil
Hold to what is good
Love one another by outdoing in good and kindness
Be patient
Be prayerful
Be hopeful
Take care of those in need
Your relationship with God and your relationship with others are directly and intricately linked. When we truly love one another, we are, in fact, also growing in our love for God. The “one another” passages of Scripture give very clear guidance on how to develop and maintain good relationships. There are many to work through, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Paul’s purpose is to encourage believers to express genuine love for one another because that is how we demonstrate our love for God. When we love others sincerely, and genuinely, that is what it means to love God.
What is the difference between sincere love and fake love based on just emotion? Devotion. If love is anything at all, it is a matter of doing something. Love is sacrificial action. Christ commands us to love God. We follow that command not with mere words, but with an obedient act of the will in which we do something good for others.
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.
What Christ did on the cross defined what love is and what love isn't. It was sin and evil, specifically our own, that caused Christ to hang on the cross suffering for hours. He was on the cross beaten, tired, mocked, abused, thirsty, and bleeding because of our sin. He hung on the cross, weighted down by the sin He was carrying. The nails secured him to the cross, but it was our sin that held him on the cross. Our sins, our selfishness, and our transgressions are what put Christ on the cross.
While we still had our backs turned in rejection, Christ sacrificially died on the cross. He was devoted to our redemption. Love isn't a feeling-based emotional concept. It's not about your heart. It's about your will. It's about devotion. It's about staying true when you don't feel like it when you don't feel loved back, when you feel rejected, and when you feel abandoned. Love is about more than you and your fleeting emotions that change moment by moment. Love is devotion above everything and everyone else. That's the example the cross gave us. And that's what it means to love God.
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.
Those days when you feel furious with God or someone else, wrapped up in your little world, angry, mad, hurt, covered in self-pity, isolated, and absolutely distraught, remember what Paul said here: Flee from evil, hold to what is good, love others, be patient, be prayerful, help those in need, and be hopeful.
Sincere Love is Based on Devotion, not Emotion.