Get Real!

Let love be without dissimulation. —Romans 12:9

Dissimulation means “to disguise or conceal under a false appearance.”   It is “putting on an act.”  Award winning actor, Richard Dreyfuss noted acting is, “based entirely on pretense. The clothes you’re wearing are not yours, the words you’re saying are not yours, you pretend that you don’t see the stagehand and you pretend you don’t see the audience—and the audience pretends you’re not actors, that you’re real life.”  It’s all FAKE!  Nothing is real.

Another word would for “dissimulation” is hypocrisy—Pretending to be what you are not. That is what Hollywood actors are paid big bucks to do.

A biblical example of this is Ananias and Sapphira who gave an amount of money to the church under the pretense that it was more than it actually was (Acts 5:1-11).  They were giving the impression that they were more spiritual than they were.  But they didn’t fool God! God ripped off their mask of pretense to show they were not being honest.

You may put on a convincing act and have a lot of people fooled, but God sees our true motives. He knows when you are putting on an act.  Therefore, don’t be a phony—Get real!