Romans 12:9

"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good."
Romans 12:9


Dissimulation is when you conceal your true feelings or intentions. I think here, and in so many other scriptures, God is telling us to be sincere and real. Now, or being nice until we can actually learn to feel love towards someone sincerely is one thing... at least we're working on it. But in an old job I used to sit very close to the sales force, and one of the guys who was right next to me would call people and be very sweet to them on the phone, and then the instant he'd hung up the phone, he started in swearing at them using the filthiest language possible. ... I think maybe it isn't so black and white with all of us, but we often do the same things. Pretend to be kind when people are around to protect the image, and then when no one is around, telling our closest confidante exactly what we really think. We go around trying to be two people... and maybe God is saying here, hey... don't do all that hard work trying to be two people. Just be one. Choose one, and be it sincerely. Love what you love, work on staying away from evil... hang out with good things. Even though we often worry whether our true selves will be accepted... by the Lord, or by anyone else... the truth is, if we can relax our efforts to be different people and just strive to make that one person a little better each day... we'll be less stressed out, and God will be truly happy with us. He loves that one person that we are down deep... and always has. Today, let's work on merging all our personalities and being real before the Lord. :) And let's try to get that one core personality to love people a little more... to choose the good and not the evil. Little by little, let's try to both be good, and real.