Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church. I Corinthians 14:12

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1 Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church. I Corinthians 14:12 Genuine Love Every born-again believer is physically, mentally, and spiritually unique with God given spiritual long-suits. We all have wonderful, fulfilling spots waiting for us to occupy in the Body of Christ. We were called to them from the beginning. Colossians 3:15-16 Romans 12:9 Ephesians 4:15,16 We were called in One Body. Let love be without dissimulation. In love. In love. Bookend markings for emphasis. Romans 12:9-13 contains a set of specific instructions for those who are already busy according to the proportion of their believing, effectually working their ministries (from verses 6-8). It is a set of instructions on how to keep our love genuine under all circumstances. 11 Romans 12:9 without dissimulation = without hypocrisy - Don t put on a fellowship face. There may have been times when we all felt that we needed to put on our fellowship face to be there. We need to see who each other really is. We never need to put on the fellowship face to hide what is really going on. God says to get rid of the face because we need to be able to work with one another in the Body. People will never know others have needs if they have the face on. There will be trust for one another, so that when we come to fellowship with needs there will be genuine love and not ridicule or condemnation. The love is what makes it all work together. This section is one sentence grammatically. A literal translation would be 12 : Let your devotion be without hypocrisy, continuously rejecting that which is evil, And cleaving to that which is good; In brotherly love toward one another, always loving like a family, 11 Verse 9 is another turning point in Romans 12. This command is the controlling principle from then on. Consider each of these commands and you ll certainly see how they are designed to keep our love of God genuine. (The teaching of Romans to the Way Corps, Wierwille, Victor Paul, 1973) 12 One Body Minded, Nessle, Jon,

2 In honor, always forwarding or promoting one another, In diligence, not ever fearfully shrinking from responsibility, In manifesting the spirit, always being fervent, In the Lord, always serving devoutly, In hope, always rejoicing in cognizance of rewards, In mental pressure, always enduring faithfully till deliverance results, In prayer, steadfastly continuing with perseverance, In the needs of the saints, always sharing fully, ever earnest in the pursuit of hospitality. Sometimes people come to fellowship with horrendous needs. We can respond to them because we have Christ in us, and we can respond with his compassion. No matter what the situation, there is an appropriate horizontal response for the family, church, household or body, whatever you want to call it, so that we can keep our love genuine. There may have been a time when we came to fellowship and we felt we had to put on our fellowship face. But when you had your fellowship face on no one could see inside and see your heart, your needs, your fears, etc. Now there will be someone placed by God in your fellowship who is the giver, server, ruler or the merciful one. Then we can have a full-sharing which includes both positive and negative things. How will they know you re in need of something if you keep your fellowship face on? Romans 12: all!lon = one another - Another signpost word indicating interactions in the body throughout the New Testament. Let your love be without the fellowship face. Let them see what s there. If you have a problem, let someone know so they can love you and help believe with you to meet your need. If we are genuine, we won t have to worry about the face anymore. If we have that kind of love and we abhor evil; if we are attracted to that which is good; if we have that familial love where we have that kind, brotherly affection for each other; if we prefer one another and advance others first before ourselves; if we re not slothful but diligent in application; if we speak in tongues much so we re fervent in spirit; if we rejoice in hope; if we re patient when tribulation comes because we ve worked the Word and done the practical application so we know that power will be there; if we continue instant in prayer; if we distribute to the necessity of the saints and if we re driven to always show hospitality even in the midst of a negative situation, and trust that one another will do the same, then we ll have a genuinely loving fellowship one with another. We won t need to put on our fellowship face when we come to that fellowship anymore! We ll know we won t be ridiculed if we have need, but helped. The renewed mind is not a form of denial. We can t eschew negatives to the point where we cannot even tell each other what is going on! We ll trust that if we are immersed with negatives, someone won t just quip, renew your mind, instead they ll pursue hospitality and help us deal with them. We ll also know that if we can help, our participation will be welcomed. 13 It is set off even more by a beautiful figure of speech, anaphora, which is like phrase or sentence beginnings. This figure was hidden by the King James translation. Throughout are present participles which carry a sense of continuousness, all of which reflect back to continuing in genuine love. It is a checklist on how to keep our love genuine in the body of Christ while we carry out our God-given horizontal ministries. 12

3 Overcoming Evil With Good Romans 12:14 In context, this is amongst believers, not unbelievers. And now we get to a section where it instructs how to keep our love genuine in the face of evil, not from without, but from within the body of believers. How do you deal with evil in the body? How do you deal with situations where one believer who ought not, hurts another believer? We are a part of a body and there can be misunderstandings and there can be situations where someone gets hurt. Being godly, we expect perfection in one another. But the last perfect person left earth about 2000 years ago What do we do about conflicts? Bless them, verse 14 says, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. This is talking about in the body, it s not talking about what you do with the world. There are people in the body that can persecute you. What do you do? Do you think about how you re going to get back at them? I know sometimes when you hurt, you want to curse, you want to figure out a way to speak it into being. But it says bless them. What does it mean bless? That s the word, euloge!, which means to speak well. What is the best thing you can speak? The Word! When someone wrongs us, we are to speak the Word to them! After all, we at the point of infraction have the greatest opportunity to right wrongs, right then and there, don t we? That s what Job did with the miserable comforters. He told them the truth in no uncertain terms. He didn t hold back an iota. Because he did so, ultimately, he shut their mouths and later truth triumphed. Romans 12:15, 16 Condescend to men of low estate = involve or busy yourself with humble things. This issue is extremely important to understand. It illustrates the godly solutions to one of the tempter s most devastating attacks on the body. There are many varieties of situations ranging from unintended or unthoughtful behavior on the other person s part to attacks that are very severe and intentional. Usually, if the wrong was unintended, having empathy will open the door for preserving the peace in the family and getting things straightened out. So take a breath before you get mad or hurt and try to see things from the other s perspective. In a body, parts don t hide the fact that they hurt from one another. Therefore, if possible, let the other know that what they said or did hurt you, but say it without further escalating tensions. Seek to be likeminded on the Word and try to keep the lines of communication open. Understanding can be achieved in a manner that actually will strengthen our fellowship with each other rather than straining it. Standing with each other and fighting for each other instead of with each other through the tough times builds mutual trust for one another. An exciting insight contained in this section was hidden by the improper translation of condescend to men of low estate. It should be rendered involve yourself with humble things. The humble things in this context are the opposite of high mindedness. 14 This thought restates verse three, not thinking higher than we ought, but soberly. It s instructing us to think sound mindedly in terms of our own measure and function and not let anything shake us from it. Don t be high minded by reacting with self righteous fury or by trying to tell God how to respond or by playing God by trying to get revenge. Neither be wise in 14 A Greek-English Lexicon of the N.T., Bauer, Walter, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1979, sunapago p

4 yourself by retreating into yourself, hiding your hurt and becoming bitter or inactive. Just do your own function. Keep doing it and do not let anything stop you from performing it! I Corinthians 10:13 God is faithful. The very fact you find yourself in a situation is ample proof that you can overcome it, because if it were too big for you, God would not allow it to occur to you. So don t become a deer in the headlights and freeze with fear in a situation, or don t react in an ungodly fashion. Look for the deliverance. God is faithful. Genuine deliverance will be there. Satan would have been better off if he hadn t orchestrated the situation you find yourself in, for when you face it, and conquer it finding God s guaranteed deliverance, you emerge stronger with a greater trust in God for you have seen Him firsthand in your deliverance. Often, the road to deliverance involves the giving forth of your ministry for in that, God is already working in you. So that is why nothing should shake us from doing our function. After it is over you will be stronger than when you started. When evil happens in the Body it is an opportunity to grow. Because when you fight for one another, you will trust one another more. Working your way through misunderstandings builds trust. Fight for one another and build trust, and when it is all over you will be stronger for it. Consequently, we have absolutely nothing to gain by distracting ourselves and seeking to pay back evil for evil, else we ll be on the receiving end as well. Therefore, we should cast all our care upon Him and keep walking. Don t harden your heart and become bitter if someone has wronged you. Bitterness hurts the vessel which contains it far more than that which it is poured out upon. Hebrews 12:15 Root of bitterness - growing beneath the surface Bitterness has the ability to defile. Root it out, don t just clip it off at the surface. Take the believing action which heals hearts and keep your love genuine so evil doesn t propagate. The queball effect stops at the point where a believer with a renewed mind stands and acts! Romans 12:17-21 Coals of fire is an Oriental expression meaning to warm them lovingly. Verse 19 is the third time within five verses that the concept of not rewarding evil with evil is stated. This repetition binds verses into a first century paragraph. Our proper response to being the recipient of evil is critical to unity and maintaining our genuine love. Psalm 94:1ff God s vengeance results in righteousness, not further reprisal. God set up the immutable law of giving and receiving and framed evil by it as Psalm 94 states. If offenders run into its brick wall, they can only blame themselves. The concept of 14

5 poetic justice in verse 23 is elsewhere in the Word. 15 It is actually His form of justice. And when you see it, you ll know it was Him working on your behalf to exact vengeance! Psalm 9:15,16 Higgaion = worthy of memory; selah = consider these words. God will take care of vengeance if it is due. We just should keep moving. We may get to see His justice, or we may not, but in either case, true vengeance for us is to go on living and to make the best of things, not letting anything stop us from our functions in the body. If we tried to effect our own vengeance, we d just mess it up anyway and get our hands dirty. We claim God s vengeance to come to pass by doing what it says here in Romans 12. God will take care of us just like He took care of Job after he was attacked. (This does not negate secular justice, which has its place, especially when the conflicting parties will not recognize a godly leader s judgment, or if the injury came from unbelievers. Everything has a cost and we need to count it. Often with secular justice the victim gets victimized further in the process of seeking man s justice, and the end result only approximates true justice. So count the cost. If the laws of the land are violated or the parties won t reconcile and the injury is substantial, maybe that is the only route to follow.) Job 4:1,2 Job 38:1ff His friends were well intentioned, but they should have shut up! The whirlwind is indicative of being in the midst of Satan s attack. God reached out to Job even in the midst of his turmoil and asked him all those unanswerable questions. Why? Because when people are hurt, they often stop and try to figure everything out, so it does not happen again. It is a fear-based act where people withdraw and attempt to control their environment and try to figure out why did this happen to them. Sometimes the answer is apparent. But if not, don t sit and stew. Keep moving. God was showing Job that he would never figure everything out. He needed to begin trusting again in the One who did know Job also got past the pitfall of blaming God. Job 40:1 Job 40:6-14 Shall we reprove God? Don t blame God if you have been hurt. Don t try to play God. God reaches out to Job again and takes him through the next step of recovery. Sometimes the injured want to take their own spiritual vigilante type of vengeance. But God was showing Job that it was not Job s business. Job 42:1-6 Job 42:7-10 Job finally understands. The evil is overcome. 15 Psalms 5:10; 7:15; 9:13-15; 35:7-9; 37:14,15; 57:3-6; 64:8; 68:18; 69:22; 94:23; 140:5-9; 141:9,10; Proverbs 12:18; 26:27; 28:10; Esther 9:25 15

6 When was Job healed? When he got to the point where he could genuinely pray for his friends. Then God went to work and Job got double. That is the dividend that God s Insurance Policy pays. Double! We can fully claim it by getting to the place that we can pray for those who hurt us. Then once we are back moving with the things of God without bitterness, He can go to work for us and we get compensated. God is not a respecter of persons, but conditions. If He did it for Job, He will do it for you if you meet the same conditions. Note that Job s recovery was not instantaneous. It took a while for him to work through everything. That s life. It is unrealistic to expect that one can wave their hand over something, especially if it concerns people, and poof, everything s okay. It often takes time, hard work and longsuffering. But in the long run God makes it worth the effort. Romans 12:14ff Matthew 5:43-48 Lord, you want what??? Now we can understand that Jesus was characterizing this love in light of its greatest application, how we could ultimately get to the place that we can pray for our enemies and those who have hurt us. I think this echoes back to Job and must be understood in its light. It doesn t matter how long it takes, keep on moving. You will get delivered and you will overcome evil with good. The best kind of vengeance is living well, walking as if it never happened. Don t let anything talk you out of your function. As children of light, we can overcome evil with good! These verses in this chapter of Romans all work together. The connective words, the repetitions and the figures of speech all function to set off each section of scripture and show how it relates to the rest. We now can see the thought flow and God s great heart for us in this great chapter. We just do not renew our minds to who we are in Christ individually, but also to who we are in the body of Christ. And since we are in a body, each of us have genuine God-given ministries that help bind the body together in love. Collectively, if we all act in genuine love, we can be triumphant in every conceivable situation, overcoming evil with good, one-body-minded! At this time if you have 3 or more manifesting believers, you may have the Receivers Session number 1 - see the Appendix: Receivers Session Guide for details. 16