Let Love Be Genuine II

Scripture Texts: Romans 12:9-13

Therefore, by the mercies of God, therefore because of the mercies of God, therefore because of the superabounding saving grace of God that overcomes all our sin, therefore because of the Gospel of God’s redeeming love, who loved us even while we were yet sinners, therefore let us be changed and transformed into the character and likeness of Him who sacrificed everything for us, and now by His Spirit in us enables us to present our bodies, our lives as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God.

How do we do that?  By no longer being conformed to the ways of the world but transformed by the renewing of our minds.  And what does that look like?  Let me count the ways, twenty-five ways, twenty-five imperative exhortations of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, a disciple of Christ.  If you are infected by the Gospel, these are the symptoms you will have.

I hope you have been reading Romans 12:9-21 at your dinner table every night, or most nights.  Let me urge you to continue that for the rest of September.  And mix up the translations.  If you don’t have different translations in your home, just Google them and print them out.

Please talk about these things at home, with your spouse, with your children.  This is vastly more important than anything on the news, in the social media, in politics, in sports.  Talk about these things, what they mean, what they don’t mean.  Chase down the cross references in your Bible.

Soak in this passage, drink deeply from this well of life-giving and life-changing water.

Be humbled by how far short you fall, but be hopeful in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.  Come to this passage at just such a time as this in your life and in the life of our flock.  God has us all here right now for a reason.  Let him who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit is saying.

The Christians in the church in Rome were a diverse mix of young and old, rich and poor, slaves and free, Gentiles and Jews, racially and ethnically divided, learning how to love each other.

Let love be genuine, let your love be without hypocrisy, not fake but authentic, for everyone.  Where is the greatest demonstration of love in the Bible?  The cross, right.  And what does that tell us about love?  That love is way more than a feeling.  Love is an action.