Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Bekindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. – Romans 12:9-13 NKJV. 

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. – Romans 12:9 The Message. 

The Waffle House in Fayetteville, North Carolina almost had a robbery. One of the customers hiding in the restroom with her two children called 911 and said, “We’re in the Waffle House on Reilly Road, and there’s a guy who’s trying to rob here, and he has a really big gun.” Pretty scary and the robber might have had a successful robbery except for 70-year-old Phillip Brooks who had served two tours in Vietnam. The robber ran up to the cash register with his AK-47 and demanded, “Give me all the money in the drawer. Open the drawer.” Brooks, who uses a cane, says that he saw immediately that the AK-47 was a fake, “This thing was wood almost all the way up to the end of the barrel. No trigger guard, no trigger. All the working parts were missing, so I just told the girls, ‘don’t give him anything. That’s a fake gun.’” The robber’s response? He pointed the fake gun at Brooks and said, “Well, I’m for real.” Brooks’ response? “I showed him how real I was. I hit him in the nose with my cane.” Other customers helped out at that point, and the robber ran away.(WRAL 04.08.16; MyFox8 04.09.16) 

Have you ever tried to fake something? Have you faked you knew how to do something when you didn’t. I have. In the oilfield, I did not really know how to operate electronic inspection units when I started working as an operator. I had been promoted to assistant operator for a company; and had sat at the console actually operating their inspection unit for about 15 minutes total, before being hired as an operator for another company. When I was called as a pastor, I did not really know everything I needed to know to be a pastor; although I had watched pastors at work, and had served as a deacon for several years. I guess you could call it on the job training. 

Have you ever faked that you liked something when you really did not like it? Have you ever acted like you loved something when you hated it? Maybe you haven’t, but some of us have. The apostle Paul in says in Romans 12:9, “Let love be without hypocrisy.” The Message puts this as, “Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.” Paul is saying in effect, if you don’t have love for others, do you really have the love of God in your heart? Good question. How much love do you have in your heart? Enough to love others without faking it?