Mutual Affection

Mutual AffectionRomans 12:9-10 “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;  love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.”This was not the verse I thought I would be using today. I was planning on using the next two verses in this chapter. However, when I clicked on the whole chapter and read these two verses, the last part jumped out at me. Has that ever happened to you? When you are reading a verse, it just jumps off the page or sticks in your head. Honestly, it doesn’t happen that often to me. This is how I knew the Lord was trying to talk to me about this specific verse today.What stood out to me was where it says, “Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.” I think this part jumped out at me because I have been really thinking a lot about how Tony and I interact, especially when other people are around. I have been noticing lately that he has changed. It used to be that the two of us were pretty sarcastic towards each other and would kinda give each other a hard time. We argued all the time. Sometimes, I think we argued just to argue because it was rarely over something important.I used to think that those who spent time with us must have wondered how long we would stay together. We love each other; I guess we just liked to argue, too. Anyway, lately, in the last several years, I have noticed that we don’t argue as much over silly things. I have also noticed that Tony has changed the way he talks about me to others as well. For the most part, when he talks about me to others, he is very kind and loving. I noticed when I went out with Tony and the people from his work a month or so ago I was still very sarcastic, and it did not come out very lovingly.  The reason I am telling you all of this is because I doubt I am the only person who could speak nicer to my spouse or loved one. Maybe for you, it is not your spouse. Maybe you need to work on how you speak to your parents, your siblings, your co-workers, your children, or whoever it is in your life that you spend a lot of time with. The Lord has been putting this on my heart a lot lately, so I wanted to share it with you as well if you are struggling with this.Let’s look at this verse and see what the Lord is telling us. It begins, “Let love be genuine.” This is harder than it may seem. In order to let love be genuine, we have to be our true selves. This means not hiding behind any facade that we may have put up to protect ourselves. This means being the real you with those you love, including God. Why do we try to hide things from the Lord? He already knows everything about us and loves us anyway. People can’t genuinely love us if they don’t truly know us. Genuine love also means that we are honest and truthful.The verse goes on to say, “Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” This can be really hard. The world teaches us to love sin. It teaches us that what we want is good and that we can have all that we want, even if it is not according to what God wants. The Bible tells us differently. the Lord says to “hate what is evil.” Do we do this? Do we hate sin? Do we hate the things that the Lord says are wrong, or do we just accept them as good because the world tells us that they are good?The verse says to hold fast to what is good. What is good? God is good. The things He tells us are good. Loving the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, and soul is good. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is good. There is a lot of good in the world; we just need to look for it. We need not be seduced by the evil in the world, and we need to look past it to see all of the good.Next it says, “ love one another with mutual affection.”Are we doing this? I know I talked about this one a bit earlier. I also want to say that this is not just talking about your spouse. God wants us to love everyone with mutual affection. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Are we doing that? Are we loving our neighbor as we love ourselves?I think this commandment gets overlooked a lot. We love God, but we struggle to love Him with our whole hearts, minds, and souls. We also have to love our neighbor, but there are a lot of not nice people out there. How can God expect us to love them? Surely God doesn’t mean I have to love my co-worker who is always throwing me under the bus? Surely, God doesn’t mean I have to love my neighbor who is always stealing my paper and talking about me behind my back. Guess what? It says in Matthew 5:44, “ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” So, yes, God wants us to love everyone, even those we would consider our enemies. Can we love those we meet in life with mutual affection? Can we at least work on it? I am sure we all know a few people in our lives that we struggle to love. God is not asking for perfection. He is asking for progress. Can we at least try to be nicer to them even if we aren’t quite ready to love them yet?The very last part of this verse says, “outdo one another in showing honor.” This is part of what struck me that I don’t think I talked about earlier. What if we made it our goal to outdo one another in showing honor? What does this mean? What if we pointed out what people were doing that was right instead of all they were doing that was wrong? What if I stopped being sarcastic with Tony, especially in public, and instead talked about all the amazing things he does at home for the kids and me or at work for his employees? I give Tony a hard time but I know how lucky I am to have him. He does all of the outside lawn work, which I hate to do. He fixes our cars, not just the little things like changing oil, but he can fix pretty much anything on the cars. He works very hard to provide for this family. What if I honored him with my speech each time I talked about him?How are you? Who do you struggle to honor? What if we started honoring our friends and family? What if we started pointing out all they are doing right instead of what they are doing wrong? What if we told them how much we love them and how proud we are of them? You would be surprised how powerful those words are, “I am so proud of you.” Those words can go a long way in honoring someone. My challenge to you today is to begin to be more aware of your speech. Begin to ask yourself if your love is genuine. Ask yourself if you hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good. Ask yourself if you have a mutual affection for others and if you are outdoing others in showing honor. It would be great if we all spent some time pondering that today. I think for most of us the answers would be no, we aren’t doing the best we can at this. If this is the case, ask yourself, “What is one thing I can do differently today to honor someone better, or to love in a more genuine way?” How can I honor those I love better today? If we start at home we can move on to our enemies once we have mastered loving our loved ones better! Mother Theresa said, “Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.”Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all of those listening today. Lord, show us how to love others. Show us how to honor others. Show us where in our life we are falling short with this. Show us where in our lives we are not hating evil and loving what is good. Lord, this world has us all mixed up. It tells us what is bad is really good, and it can be hard to know what to believe. Help us turn to you. Help us listen only to your voice, Lord. Help your voice be louder than all the others. We love you Lord, you are amazing. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I know the world might seem like a scary place right now. This is why I decided the theme for mentoring this month would be “Be Not Afraid.” I invite you all to join me next Tuesday for the week #2 of this series. The recording of Week #1 is on my Facebook page. If you want to watch it to see what mentoring is all about, feel free to reach out and I will email you the link to watch week #1 ahead of time. If you want more information on mentoring, please click on the link below or go to my website walkboldlywithJesus.com and click on the mentoring tab. I look forward to seeing you again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!Today’s Word from the Lord was received in May 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “I got the impression that we are each in our way a blessing. And there's certain things that he wants to use each one of us to bless others. But if we stay in our own little cocoon and we don't do anything, other people will not receive this blessing that God has given each one of us.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace