"Love must be sincere, hate what is evil cling to what is good." - Romans 12:9
Often times we read this verse and immedicatly apply it to ourselves. We need to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. This is true ad right, however, I think we rarely stop to think about the beginnging of the verse. Love must be sincere. What does that mean?
The definition of sincere is "pure; unmixed; unadulterated." So to have sincere love, it is a love that is genuine and pure. When we look at the way that Christ loves us, we see sincerity. He knows who we are to the deepest level, yet he genuinly cares about us. He is patient, kind, his love is oriented to us and our best intrest. He always persues us, always protects us, and never fails us.
Part of being a christian, is orienting our lives to reflect His. Is our love sincere? Do we genuinly care about people? We talk about caring for people all the time, yet to be honest, that other person really annoys us and we hate certain things that they do or say. Is that a sincere love?
Love is both a feeling and and action. If you genuinly love someone, you will act on it regardless of the feeling. However, I believe when you sincerly love someone, you always have compassion for them so that yor actions are matches with care.
Caring about someone should compel us to act on that emotion. How do we sincerly love people? I believe through compassion, a deep awareness of and sympathy for another's suffering. When we see people as just as broken and lost as we are, something about the way we realte to them changes. However, we first need to see that we are broken, beyond our own ability to repair. When we can relate to other people based on our own failures, we begin to genuinly love the other person.
So is your love sincere? Do you have a compassion that compels you to act?
~Catie
