Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. 1 Peter 1:22
A little girl was invited to dinner at her friend’s home. The vegetable that was to be served was buttered broccoli. The mother asked the little guest if she liked it. The girl replied politely, ‘Oh, yes, I love it!’ But when the broccoli was passed to her she declined to take any. Surprised, the hostess said, ‘I thought you said you loved buttered broccoli.’ The girl replied sweetly, ‘Oh, yes ma’am, I do, but not enough to eat it!’ We are not quite sure what that girl thought the word ‘love’ meant. But she could be forgiven for being confused, because the word ‘love’ as it is used all about us today certainly doesn’t carry the same meaning as we find presented in the Scriptures. People use the word ‘love’ to refer to everything from extramarital sex to a fondness for onions, from any sort of relationship with a family member to pleasure at seeing a pretty scene. The term ‘unfeigned love’ as found in our text might as well come from a foreign language. But it is the love that the Holy Spirit desires that you and I have for each other.
This is the first – and probably only – time today that you will have heard the word ‘unfeigned’. If I were to ask you what it means, you, just like me, would probably have to go and look it up. It comes from the Greek word ‘anypokriton’ which simply means not acting or pretending. It is much the same meaning as ‘sincere’. There is nothing two-faced about unfeigned love. This type of love comes to us from two divine sources: first, we have the perfect example of the Lord Jesus, and secondly we have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These stand in direct contrast to the fake smiles and deceptive handshakes and deceitful kisses of the world. Just as the Lord Jesus had no motive other than His love for everything that He did for us, so we should be motivated by nothing but love in all of our dealings with our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Unfeigned love means that we overlook the faults and shortcomings of our fellow believers. Unfeigned love means that we rejoice in the company of each other and enjoy the things of the Lord together. Unfeigned love means that we look for ways to display our sincere care for each other. Unfeigned love means that it causes us pain when another Christian suffers. Unfeigned love means that the interests of the Lord’s people take precedence over our own interests.
Is our love for each other unfeigned? Or is it sullied with elements of the fake love of the worldly? – Jim MacIntosh