Loving, Abhorring, and Clinging

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

LOVING, ABHORRING, AND CLINGING

Rom 12:9-13

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

NIV

How can love be sincere? Is there something such as fake love? First, we should see this is agape love, not the agapao type of love which is love in a social or moral sense. Agape love is defined as a love feast, affection, and goodwill. It is used as the love of men for men, or people for people, it is used as the love of men toward God, it is used as the love of God toward Christ, and of Christ toward men. It is the fullest of all loves. Because it is used of the love of Christ toward men, then we can see a perfect example of how we are to love in the must sincere, or as the Greek word, anupokritos means unfeigned, genuine, or undisguised, or not concealed. We would think if we are loving each other in the way that Christ loves us then we would not never, ever do anything that would cause any harm to anyone in any way whatsoever, but that we would openly exhibit love toward each other in the purest and most honest way. At the same time, which would be very natural in this purest form of love, we would hate, detest, abhor, and have a horror of any form of evil. We pray often that God would not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil. Therefore, if that is our prayer and God hears our prayer, especially one that Jesus gave us to pray, we would have to believe that we are, in fact, delivered from evil. However, if we are exhibiting this purest form of love, it would be natural to abhor evil. Yet, it would also seem that whenever we fail to live with perfection, which in this corruptible flesh that we are presently captive in is impossible to do, we commit some form of sin, which is in essence evil. However, because of the perfect love that Christ has for us, going to the cross for that very reason of taking our sin upon himself and paying the debt for us, we are able to live in the forgiveness of God, thus we still abhor that evil and desire to love him with all our being, and in doing so, we also are to love others as he loves us. Therefore, our love should, no must, be genuine, without any façade, meaning a transparent sincere love, clinging to that which is good. We hold tightly to the good, which if we are honest with ourselves we would know that God is the only one who is truly Good, therefore we cling to God.