Let Love Be Genuine

Romans 12 provides us with one of scripture’s clearest pictures of practical Christ-like living. We see scripture’s exhortation to live a life marked with action. I believe a healthy understanding and practice of these things help us “put to death” the old self and actively “put on” the new self, helps us in the practice of “setting our minds on things above”, helps our transformation by the “renewing of our minds”, helps us to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus”.

Here is what scripture teaches us in Romans 12:9-13:
  • Allow love to be genuine
  • Utterly detest evil and hold on to what is good
  • Love the body with brotherly affection
  • Excel in showing honor
  • Activate zeal and show intensity in spirit in service to God
  • Rejoice in hope, patient in tribulation, constant in prayer
  • Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek opportunities for hospitality

I'm convinced as I read Romans that Paul's call to "let love be genuine" has everything to do with the vertical, that is our condition of love toward God.

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Word and Deed and Tozer

"We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.  This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church.  Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him, or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God."

The Knowledge of the Holy

A.W. Tozer

The question that explodes through my head and every fiber of my being as I read this one paragraph of Tozer is this - "What has my life left unsaid?" ... not an easy question for self-analysis.

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