Be Still And Know

Romans 12.9-10 NLT 'Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other.' Napoleon once said, “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires; but upon what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love.” It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of love. Without love there can be no church, no blessing, no joy, no future worth having. Everything depends upon love and here Paul is concerned that the Christians in Rome didn’t make do with a phoney love. He recognised that it is possible to pretend to love other people. We can do it by being superficial and merely polite with others, glancing over the surface of their lives without really engaging with them and their needs. What Paul longed for was for deep, compassionate, sacrificial love which would totally transform their life together. It is interesting that P