Sincere Love

Sincere Love

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart . . . .” 1 Pet. 1:22.

The tendency is to want to purify the others. Rom. 7:21. One feels that it is difficult to love people as they are and prefers that they were different. Consequently, one begins to want to purify them. It is self-love that gives us this understanding. We will never come to love people in this way. We need to cleanse ourselves. We need to find this self-interest, know-it-all attitude, conceit, etc., in ourselves and purify ourselves from it. These things have deep roots. A person usually cleanses a vessel from the outside so he does not find these things right away. There needs to be a cleansing, a smelting; the fire has to break something down so that the dross—the inner impurities—can be seen and cleansed away. Ps. 17:3. Then we will receive a sincere brotherly love. We can never receive it by purifying the others, only by purifying ourselves. In the world they flatter each other in order to gain an advantage. Their friendliness is only feigned. This insincere love is very deeply ingrained. Our love is feigned if we only love them when they are, as we want them to be. Thus our love is insincere if we want to purify the others. On the other hand, if we want to have a sincere love, we need to purify ourselves. Then this will be a love that does not seek its own. Therefore we need to purify our soul if it is difficult to love. This sincere love makes me everyone’s servant; it makes me great in God’s kingdom. It makes my path even, with the result that I am always ready to do every good work. Insincere love makes me unstable in all my ways; sometimes I am zealous, at other times I am slack. I serve and make demands according to whether it is to my advantage or whether it suits me. When I purify myself, I will also become zealous for good works. Tit. 2:14. Then I will be happy in all circumstances. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus we do not think up evil; we do not make demands.