Romans 12:9a

Let love be without hypocrisy.

This is a short verse fragment but it is extremely fitting for us right now. Of all of the things that people say about Christians, being called hypocrites is especially bad. Although those who say things like this are usually hypocrites themselves, this kind of thing should not be a part of Christianity at all. We usually think of hypocrisy as the act of saying one thing and doing another. This is a kind of hypocrisy, but the word has bigger and even simpler meaning than this. I am told that in Greek it means “one who wears a mask.” My understanding is that in those days, play actors would use masks in a play to hide their true identity and to give people an impression. In other words, hypocrisy is another word for putting on an act. When we love we should be loving for real.

God never intended for Christians to get together and act nice to each other. God wants us to be a family and He wants us to be real. Real love doesn’t give fake smiles but instead it really wants to get to know people. If we don’t feel like loving, it would be much better to admit it and pray about it than to fake it. Love must be real or else it really isn’t love at all.

Once again, we must remember that we can’t make ourselves love by just trying. I believe that we become hypocrites when we “try” instead of depending on God. God must be the one to fill our hearts with love so that it can be real and so again we see that it depends on faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.