Love Must be Sincere

Romans 12:9-13

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Love Must be Sincere

     If I never get past the walls of your castle, I can never truly know the heart of your kingdom.  Perhaps this is why so many live behind high walls and never let anyone into their hearts and lives.  We put up walls as our defense and protection system to keep people from getting to close to us.  Behind those walls of pretense and the projection of what we want people to believe is the real us, may be someone totally different.  Often it is fear of rejection, past hurts, unwillingness to really know others and allow them to know you, that keep us from being sincere in our love.  What we discover in this state is that we can never fully be who God has called us to be, because He has told us that love must be sincere.  Christianity can have so many pretenses and hypocrisy about it that it looks nothing like Christ.  God wants us to be real with each other and truly love one another out of a sincere heart.

               How many of us have been around “Christians” that would bless you to your face and curse you to your back.  That is not sincere love. 

               We are to be the dispensers of God’s pure unadulterated love.  What does that mean?  It means that it is not contaminated with my agendas, my opinions, my selfishness or even my feelings.  It is about God’s love flowing through you.  It can’t truly be God’s if it is all polluted with fleshly elements can it? 

               Our walls and our pretense are really all about us and preserving our self-image, whatever we imagine that to be.  God is not about our self-image, He is about His image being expressed through us and His image is love.  It is not pretentious; it is real and it is sincere.  God says, “hate what is evil, cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.”  That can’t be real if it is only coming through outward words, but no action.  We have to keep this truth before us that when you serve and love your brothers and sisters, you are serving and loving the Lord, because He is resident in them.  How many of us would miss Jesus today if we met Him on the street because our walls are so high that He couldn’t begin to reach our heart.  Save your walls for the enemy and open the gates of your heart to the brethren and to be the expression of God’s love.  Trust God to protect your heart, because if you know that you are His son and daughter then your security and identity is complete in Him, not who we might pretend to be.  “Love must be sincere, so get real.

Blessings,

#kent

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Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

James 3:17
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, [and] easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

The definition of a hypocrite is, one who answers, an interpreter, an actor, stage player, pretender, one who is feigned, disguised or is insincere. It is one who wears a mask or false identity. It is a fact of human nature that what you see is not always what you get. From the time we are children we grow up learning to play the game of human interaction. We learn to put forward what others or society expects of us which often is not who we really are. We want to be people pleasers and accepted of others. Sometimes we have so many identities we don’t even know who we are.
Then, when we become Christians we are introduced to the religious system and we learn how to wear that mask. We learn the right phrases, how to act and put forward what is “acceptable Christian behavior.” Never mind the arguing, fighting and ugliness we showed toward our spouse and children as we were getting ready for church and on the way. As we step out of the car and walk into the church suddenly this transformation takes place. Suddenly we put on this godly smile and countenance and to those we encounter all is right with the world. If we are honest all of us have experienced this kind of behavior in our lives and probably still do. There is this duality in our lives that keeps us from being who we really are for fear that that is unacceptable. Many of us spend our lives living a lie and fashion ourselves around the dictates of others. We are so afraid of being seen in the nakedness of who we really are. It is true that many of us have some pretty hideous deformities and abnormalities in our lives, but are they ever dealt with and healed by masking them over. Our lives become one big game of pretending to be something or someone we really aren’t. What is worse, we then judge others out of our pretentious hypocrisy, because they don’t live up to the standard. The truth is they just don’t play the game as good as we do.
Is this what God wants us to be? If ever Jesus railed on anyone, it wasn’t the outright sinner it was the hypocrite. The one who liked to condemn and point the finger when inside he was no different than the ones he condemned. ” For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye (Matthew 7:2-5).”
We have been talking a lot about light and darkness. It is time we all come out into the light and be real with who we are. The truth is that most all of our lives are a mess in one area or another. We know that God sees us for who we really are. We know that it is only His power and grace that can transform us. How can this take place if we can’t even face up to who and what we are? It starts with us being honest with ourselves and with God. His love and mercy has already been extended to us in that, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” He loves us no matter how ugly the sin our lives has been, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. His desire is bring us out of darkness into the light so that there it is exposed and we can repent, receive forgiveness through the blood of Christ and begin a path in the opposite direction of our sin, dependent upon the Lord to help us walk that way. We are all in this walk together and we are going from glory to glory, but we are at different stages in our maturity and walk with God. Our purpose as a body is to help each other along the way. We have to deal with these sin issues with honesty if we are going to be set free of them. If we want to continue to hold on to them then the dealings must become more severe, because these are stumbling blocks and hindrances to who we really are in Christ and what He has called us to be. Romans 12:9 says, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.” It is time that we quit playing games with God and with others and be real. Let’s deal with who we really are, because only then can we come into what God wants us to be. It is time we stop living the lie of hypocrisy and become the forgiven vessels of His mercy and grace no matter how humble that may be. “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, [see that ye] love one another with a pure heart fervently: (1 Peter 1:22).”

blessings,
#kent

Key to the Treasure

Isaiah 33:5-6
The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.
6He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

Key to the Treasure

It is important for us in this time to know the difference between religion and relationship. Religion carries with it a knowledge of God, an exercise or expression of ceremonial worship, but it is evident that this not acceptable to God if our hearts are not right and our spirit in tune with His. Religion can know about God, His salvation, His power to save, but it doesn’t move God if the heart of the people doesn’t line up with the pursuit of God’s heart in their obedience and faithfulness.
Jeremiah 14:7-10 is a good example. Here Jeremiah cries out to God for His people, but hear God’s answer. “Although our sins testify against us, O Lord, do something for the sake of your name.
For our backsliding is great; we have sinned against you. 😯 Hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are you like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night?
9Why are you like a man taken by surprise, like a warrior powerless to save?
You are among us, O Lord, and we bear your name; do not forsake us!
10This is what the Lord says about this people:
“They greatly love to wander; they do not restrain their feet. So the Lord does not accept them;
he will now remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.”
When we are powerless and it doesn’t seem like God is showing up, the first thing we want to check is, are we lining up with God’s Word, walking in His principles and ways, living in obedience and pursuit of His highest for our lives. Much of our impotence and the absence of God’s power from our lives may have to do with an outward expression of religion, but our lives aren’t lining up with our confession and outward expression. Perhaps we have been seeking to please God with our outward works and religious expressions rather than communing with Him consistently within our hearts and honoring Him by our fear, reverence, obedience and faithfulness.
Look again at Isaiah 33:5-6. Look at the results when we align our hearts with His. When we exalt Him with a right heart and attitude in Spirit and in truth then, “The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.
He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.” The key to the treasure of God’s heart is our relationship with Him. When we pursue Him in honesty and whole heartedness then we are fearing and reverencing Him. He is center of all that we are and all that we do. He is exalted in all that we are blessed with and to Him goes all of the glory. He will be all that He has promised to be when we are living what He has called us to be.
Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that mere religious acts can appease the Father. He doesn’t want our lip service, He wants our hearts. If we feign to live godly and yet do not restrain our feet to wander, do we have a right to expect God to honor us with His great salvation and deliverance in our time of need? If we love Him we will keep His commands and walk in them. Then we well experience the rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge, because the “FEAR” of the Lord is the “KEY” to this treasure

Blessings,
kent