True Love and Fake Love

Policy

This is the age of commerce. In the realm of commerce everything is conducted on the basis of policy. How sad that believers are also contaminated with this stratagem. We ought to know the difference between truthfulness and policy. There is a distance of heaven to earth between our truly loving people and our loving as a policy. Whoever truly loves loves from his heart; whoever loves out of policy loves only from his head. True love is the outflow of inward reality, whereas love out of policy is a forced external appearance. It is natural for a spiritual Christian to love truthfully, for his inside and outside agree; but to love on the basis of policy is manufactured because the inward and the outward disagree.

The behavior of a carnal Christian is mainly governed by policy. His conduct is not natural for it is not the outflow of inward reality. It is controlled by his fear of criticism or his desire for approval. Using brotherly love as an example, we see that a carnal Christian’s expression of such love does not flow from real love but is manipulated to court the pronouncement of spirituality upon him by his brethren. Alas, many loves are fake. May the Lord deliver us from such pretension.

What Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 penetrates deeply to the heart of our thoughts and intents. Such a great act as giving our body to be burned has the possibility of being without love. For it can be an act of policy, not one of truthful love. Hence the apostle judges it on this wise: “it profiteth me nothing” (v.3). Love out of policy takes care of the appearance, yet heart and mouth do not agree. It is putting on a facade, and is void of the work of God’s grace. This is a deceiving of self and of others. It truly is the wiles of Satan. Let us see that such love, generated as it is by policy, cannot endure long. With the passing of time, the real condition within will be exposed. Such forced love will not help one’s spiritual life one whit. Let us rely on the cross of Christ to eliminate all such evils in heart. Let us truly love: “Let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth” (1 John 3.18).