Saturday, January 14, 2017

January 15, 2017

"Love must be honest and true. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good. Love each other deeply. Honor others more than yourselves." Romans 12:9-10

Everyone wants love. Everyone needs love. Very few know how to give it. Many have trouble receiving it.

Tucked into the center of this incredible chapter about finding our purpose is this admonition to learn how to love. Could it be that love is at the heart of our purpose?

Uh..........yes!

Once the ego, and the evil and the emotions have been surrendered, and once the mind has had a supernatural transformation (by the way, the word for "transformation" is the root word for "metamorphosis" - which is what happens when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly). What happens in your heart and mind is no less miraculous than that!
When you have removed the obstacles to loving God and of receiving His love, you have positioned yourself to think and act in loving ways. One expression of that is serving in the Body using your spiritual gift.

So, the result of heeding these admonitions will be unity and community in the Body. As hard as it is to get there, how in the world do you maintain it?

Unity and community are preserved by maturity. Mature love will keep the Body healthy and growing.

What is mature love? What does it look like? What are the characteristics that mark this love? That will be the theme of our posts this week.

Mature love is sincere. Sincere means "real", not "phony", not "faked". The origins of the word "sincere" comes from two words meaning "without wax". Interesting, eh? It comes from a practice common to unscrupulous potters when they sold their wares in the market. Occasionally as the pots were being fired in the kiln, a few of them would crack. You have known enough crackpots in your lifetime to know that doesn't work. But rather than take the loss on the pots that had cracked the dishonest potter would melt wax and seal over the cracks and paint the pottery to hide their deception. Then they would sell the defective pots at full price. Only when that pot sat in the sun and the wax melted did the buyer realize he had been swindled. So, to protect their own business and reputation, honest potters would put up a sign at their booth that said "Sine Cere" - "without wax".

Mature love does not try to cover the cracks in its life nor does it reject others for the imperfections they have. As Peter admonishes, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." I Peter 4:8 Mature love lets the love of God seep through the cracks of their life and into the cracks of others!

Do you love with a mature love? 

Do you know someone who loves you like that?