Daily Bread_February 25, 2013

Title: What is Our Greatest Need?

Text:

John 3:16 (ESV)
¹⁶ "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 Peter 4:8 (ESV)
⁸ Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Observation:

I always make it my aim, and my practice to go with God; I believe the words of the hymn, "Where He leads me I will follow". So four hours later than normal, I sat to write what I heard God say to me as I was driving home from the Fitness Club.

I asked a question in search of God's will earlier this morning, and the answer came to me through the ears of my heart. It said you should meditate and write on the word "love" today.

The words, "What the World Needs Now is Love" popped into my head. I looked it up, and found that it was a song written by Hal David in 1965.

Is love really our greatest need? That's what God thinks, and he proved it by the extent to which he went to provide for our need.

I remember something that I heard repeatedly in a Marriage Enrichment Conference I attended years ago; it was this, "Love is a verb, and love is something that you do". Love is more than something you feel; real love is something that you do. God commands husbands to love their wives. Okay Lord, I get it, but how do I do it?

This type of love, God's love, gives without any expectation of receiving something in return. Anything else is not love in God's eyes. Think about this.

Are you willing to look at the person in the mirror and say do I really love the significant people in my life with Godly love? The test of true love is what am I willing to give them without any expectation of anything in return?

We can't do this in our own strength. Only, if love lives in our hearts through the divine triune God can we love like this.

If you want to change the world, change the person you see when you look in the mirror. Begin by loving those who are closest to you; your spouse and your children. Nothing else will work; you must choose to love others first. Remember, "Love is a verb; it is what you do". God chose to love us by giving us his only begotten son. Look at the condition we were in when God chose to love us.

Ephesians 2:1-3 (ESV)
¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

What are you willing to give to save your home, the world? Love covers a multitude of sins; love covers it all.

Prayer

Our Father in heaven, my dear Father, I pray that you will help us to love others in the manner that you have loved us. Father, help me to give to the significant others in my life the gift of love without any conditions attached. Lord, pour out your love in us and through us like this rain that is pouring down right now. In Jesus name, Amen.

 

--

Acts 6:4 (KJV)
⁴ But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.

 

My blog: Sharing the Word of God Daily:

 http://herbcotton.blogspot.com/