Let love be without hypocrisy...

Romans 12 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Dedicated Service

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

³ For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. ⁴ For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ⁶ Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; ⁷ if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; ¹¹ not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, ¹³ contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. ¹⁷ Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. ¹⁸ If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. ¹⁹ Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul begins saying we are to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice. Typically when thinking of a sacrifice we think of death of the thing being sacrificed. The old covenant animal sacrifices, Jesus death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin and even Jesus instruction that as His followers deny themselves and take up their cross, in Luke 9:23-24.

And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.

So what is it that Paul is encouraging us here? What is a living sacrifice? The first thing Paul says is that to give our bodies as a living sacrifice we must,  “ not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” So the first thing we are to do is to have a renewed mind. The mind is where we think, where we make decisions. God gave us a free will, the ability to make our own choices and decisions. Paul talks more about the  renewing of our minds in 2 Corinthians   10:3-5  

 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, ⁴ for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. ⁵ We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

“Every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” That doesn’t mean we will never have unholy thoughts. It doesn’t mean that we will never be tempted to do things that are displeasing to God. Our mind is where the battle for our body and soul is waged. The faster we are to engage in the battle there, in our minds and our thoughts, the more successful we will be in living as God intends.  That after all is the purpose of our non-conformation, the reason we are to renew our minds, “so that you may prove what the will of God is”. To present our bodies as a living sacrifice, proves or displays the will of God and it is a form of worship.

There is a key aspect of what Paul writes about here that I think is often overlooked. Paul is encouraging us to give a living sacrifice, not a sacrifice unto death. When we live in the old covenant mindset we believe that our sacrifice must mean or include death. We mistakenly believe that a life sacrificed to God is a life of bearing the cross and dying. That’s not what Paul is saying here and it’s not what Jesus said. He said: , "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.    We are to follow Christ.  We are to take up our cross, but as 1 Peter 3:18 says:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

Jesus died so that we wouldn’t have to. He died so that we could live. Jesus Himself says:  "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.(John 10:10)   So our lives should not reflect death, but rather the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. We deny ourselves, our lusts, our selfish desires, we deny our unholy thoughts and actions, but we live in the abundance of God. Our lives should be attractive to the world, not a life of death but rather a life of abundance, “, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect”

In verses 3-8, Paul describes how this abundant living is then displayed in and through our lives. He says:    ⁶ Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; ⁷ if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

Often, within the church we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others. In doing that we can get to the place where we actually judge them. We, as individuals have been given a particular gift or combination of gifts to use for Christ and His body. Paul says that each one should use the gift or gifts he has been given accordingly, to the fullest extent, abundantly. The one who is gifted and called to serving should not question the one who teaches. The one who is gifted and called to lead should not question the one who exhorts. The one who prophesies should not question the one who shows mercy and vice versa and so on. Each one has been given a particular gift. That doesn’t mean that the teacher should not show mercy or serve etc. But we each should know our own gifts, walk in them abundantly and rejoice in those who walk in the other gifts. Only together can we do all that Jesus did.   “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

Paul ends this portion of his instruction with: ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  We are not to be overcome by evil, neither are we to simply tolerate and accept it. We are to overcome evil with good. Light dispels darkness. Jesus says:

 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; ¹⁵ nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.(Matthew 5:13-16)

We cannot overcome evil by tolerating, accepting and participating in evil. Paul says: ⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Christians are often judged as being hypocrites, that may or may not be a fair judgment. But the truth is that if we are to show true love, without hypocrisy, it must be a love that speaks the truth. It must be a love that abhors evil and clings to what is good. Love that tolerates evil is not love at all, it is hypocrisy. Where we struggle though is in the other part of what Paul says.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. ¹⁷ Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. ¹⁸ If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

We can only walk in the grace that is required to bless those who persecute us and to be at peace with all men, the grace required to, as Jesus did, love the sinner while standing firm against sin, if we:

 Present your(our) bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Only then will we:   prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Thank You Jesus for Your sacrifice, You died so that I could live. Holy Spirit I submit myself to You, so that by the renewing of my mind, I might live an abundant life of sacrifice to God. Empower and enable me as only You can, to overcome evil with good, to abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. Help me to love without hypocrisy, to love in truth. Help me as far as it is possible to be at peace with all men. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who came to give me abundant life.   Amen