LET LOVE BE WITHOUT DISSIMULATION

We now begin a series of Bible commands that are intensely practical and prove the reality of faith.

Love is the hallmark of the gospel. ‘God is love’, 1 John 4. 16. ‘For God so loved the world’, John 3. 16. Our Lord taught, ‘This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you’, John 15. 12; ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another’, John 15. 17. The expectation of the Lord is that love among believers would be a witness to the world. ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another’, John 13. 35. One cannot read the New Testament without seeing how predominant the command to love is.

Here the emphasis is on the sincerity of love. ‘Without dissimulation’ means that love should be genuine and without hypocrisy. It is not to be a love of mere words, but includes all sorts of acts of kindness.

The word for love is agape and, according to Strong’s Concordance, means ‘benevolence or affection’. When this is combined with being genuine and sincere, we can see how powerful a witness this is. The world uses the word love but knows little of it. Most expressions of love outside of scripture have a strong element of self interest. When unbelievers observe believers acting in genuine love toward one another they see an irrefutable argument as to the power of our Lord Jesus.

But such love is not only a witness to the lost; it is a tremendous power in Christian assemblies. Love overcomes all kinds of difficulties that threaten to undermine a local church. When self takes over there is trouble; but when love prevails there is peace and harmony. 1 Corinthians 13 should be read at least weekly by all believers. If love was the answer to the troubled Corinthian assembly, surely it is the answer for us today.

Love is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit and can only be seen through His working and power. Paul states it plainly, ‘the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us’, Rom. 5. 5.

Let Him do His work in my heart today so that I can obey this greatest of all Bible commands.