Marks of the True Christian
“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” Romans 12:9
Romans 12 is one of my favourite chapters in the Bible. It’s full of everything one needs to live a life in Christ. The title of this part of the chapter is Marks of a True Christian, which leads us to believe that there is such thing as a false or untrue Christian. Does a false Christian even know that they are a false Christian?
This very small yet packed verse comes with three instructions. Let love be genuine. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a very long list of what genuine love actually looks like lived out. But I believe that Paul begins with love, over and over again, because if we cannot get love right then, we are going to mess up on all the rest. Genuine love is only possible if we have a revelation of God’s love for us. We cannot genuinely love if we have not first received God’s love in fullness and are walking in God’s love for others through the power of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the spirit within us. This is the anchor quality with which all other things should be expressed. And what is so challenging about this is that our love is not perfect, nor is it ever perfect. So this causes us to get it wrong a lot. We must accept this because then and only then can we walk in humility as we express God’s love to the world, albeit imperfectly.
Once we have a revelation on God’s love, we can look at the second part of this verse. Abhor what is evil… abhor is hate. Evil separates us from God, and we should see it as such. Again, the most challenging part about our discernment is that it’s often based on our own determination and not on the scriptures or comparison to a holy God. We must recognize the roots of evil and its purpose in our lives and call it out, despite participating with it, while we hold onto and cling to what is good according to the scriptures.
I pray for discernment to know the difference between my interpretation of good and evil and what is good and evil to you, Lord. It should be easy and clear, but I often get in the middle of it all and try to make an exception or excuse or just diminish the consequences of evil. The other hard part of this verse is when it pertains to other people. We are masterfully good at seeing the speck in our brother’s eye but ignoring the plank in our own. We can see so clearly when we look at others, but we are deceived when it comes to our own lives. Lord, help me to root everything in love, genuine love, your genuine love. I need the help of the Holy Spirit every single day to love genuinely and hate evil.
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Glenda Paquin
WOW, thank you, I needed this, today, just now. I have to admit I had some challenges during Heartstrong today, no details to share because they have all been shared with with the only ONE that matters. I have been learning that when my heart feels unsettled by what others are saying or doing, it is causing me to discern something. Now the question is, is that discerning based on criteria I stand on, or the enemy chirping in my ear or is it truly the Holy Spirit. Through past missteps where I have acted to quickly and publicly, on these unsettled reactions, I have had to be lovingly corrected after… And do you know how I know I need correction, because once shared, the unsettledness does not go away, and in most cases it gets worse. Only when I truly release it to God and leave it there, even if I have to do it 2, 3, 4… times, do I feel the weight gone and then I know I have been “corrected”, redirected to truth. This post is a keeper.