“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”
-Romans 12:9
This verse packs three commandments. I think the second two are helping to define the first. The first being let love be genuine. This authentic love is true from the inside out. Mark 12:30 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” We may be able to fake loving God with our strength and appear to be faithful, but our hearts can be far from Godliness. Genuine love for God includes the whole man imperfectly, yes, but still our whole being. This is what God requires and this is what God gives. We ought not try to love God in truth and our neighbor in flakey love either. Here, Paul is saying take off your fake smile and empty words and put on true personal affection. It is not a check box love or simply only an outside care. The same care that is given for your own sake should be given to your neighbor.
The second thing Paul says is “You shall abhor what is evil”. It is beneficial that Paul follows genuine love with abhorring evil. When you abhor something, you are disgusted by it and hate it. Here, in God’s word you see love and hate meet. This paradox is present at the cross. You see God’s abhorrence towards sin, yet it is the most loving moment in history. Sin should be at the top of the list to hate. Charles Spurgeon has a helpful thought. He says, “If I had a brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I… daily consorted with the assassin who drove the dagger into my brother’s heart; surely I too must be an accomplice in the crime. Sin murdered Christ; will you be a friend to it? Sin pierced the heart of the Incarnate God; can you love it?” Our sin is what held Him there, friends. It was yours and mine. Our flesh fights against righteous hatred by confusing it with sinful hatred and this feeds us reasons to disobey. It is as if we are calling for the Savior to lift His foot off the Serpent’s head, but Jesus loves us by crushing the serpent’s head.
Lastly here, Paul says, “Hold fast to what is good”. You must cling to what is good. This is worship. That means cling to what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and most of all, cling to Christ. You must search the scriptures and understand what God calls good and feed that to your soul. As a born-again believer you cannot quench your appetite with anything else. You can’t do it. You will always find that you are eating air when your body craves the meat the Lord has given to us.
Church, there is no neutral ground. By holding fast to what is good you are rejecting what is evil. Jesus says, You are either for Him or against Him, this is true of everything we do. Our actions will either bring honor to God’s name or misrepresent Him as we sin. Do not callous your hearts by indulging in the things that counterfeit genuine love. Being nice is not always loving. The world wants its own admiration at the expense of Christ exaltation. Don’t fall into that trap. You can love well because He first loved you. 2 Peter 1:3 “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,” This is the Christian life. Love genuinely, hate evil and cling to what is good.