LOVE ENSURES ANSWERS TO PRAYERS!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY AUGUST 27, 2022.

SUBJECT : LOVE ENSURES ANSWERS TO PRAYERS!

Memory verse: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal." (First Corinthians 13 vs 1.)

READ: First John 3 vs 21 - 23:

3:20: For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

3:21: Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.

3:22: And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

3:23: And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

3:24: And he who keeps His commandments abides  in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. 

INTIMATION:

Love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church—the body of Christ. Great faith, acts of dedication or sacrifice, and miracle working power have little effect without love. Love makes our actions and gifts useful. Although people have different gifts, Love is available to everyone.

In the passage we read today, the Scripture, when explained, says, "Beloved, if those who have trained their consciences by the word of God feel guilty when they do not do that which is right, then they are condemned by God who knows our conscience. The Christian who is guided by the word of God must be aware of the fact that if he does not walk according to his Bible-trained conscience, his guilty conscience indicates that he is not right with God. 

But if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask, we receive of Him because we are walking in love—doing the things that are pleasing in His sight.” It makes no difference how many promises you plead, if you are not walking in love, your prayer life will be a failure.

First John 3 vs 23 is worthy of meditation because there lies the greatest commandment, ‘And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ (John 6 vs 29), and love one another, as He gave us commandment.’ If you walk in love, you can walk into the Father's presence just as Jesus did, and know that your prayers will be heard and answered. Jesus usually says to the Father "I know You hears Me." This is because He is always walking in love hence the Bible noted in Acts 10 vs 38 that "He went about doing good," showing love and compassion on people.

If you walk in love, there will be no problem of faith to confront you as there was no problem of faith with Jesus during His earth walk; you are walking in love; you are doing the word; you are letting Jesus live His life in you. The Father can see Jesus in you, feeling Jesus in your petitions for others. God knows all things including the intents of our heart. If you are not walking in love, He knows you are not obeying His commandment, and is not pleasing Him with what you do.

Jesus Christ gave us the greatest commandment in Mark 12 vs 29 - 31; love your God and love your neighbor. In verse 31 He said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." In John 13 vs 34 - 35, Jesus emphasized the importance of the new commandment, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” In the two verses of forty words, Jesus repeated ‘love one another’ three times, for emphasis sake.

Now, in Matthew 7 vs 24 - 25 Jesus said, "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock." And the apostle James says in his epistle. "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (James 1 vs 22.) Walking in love is the sure way of walking into the Father’s heart, and a solid foundation your life in Christ.

This lover here is a doer of love. He lives in the love realm. It is not the old Phileo love, but the new kind of love that Jesus brought, "Agape" and so we love in deed and in reality. Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth and persuaded in our hearts to stand in confidence before Him in prayer because we have done His will. Your heart is your spirit. Your heart knows whether you are practicing love toward other people. If they need clothes and you are able to give them, and they cannot get them, then it is up to you to meet that need, if you are able. You are to treat them as Jesus has treated you. He died for you, you live for them.

Let us now also join this to First John 5 vs 14 - 15, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His Will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us , whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." If we walk in love, we never pray out of His Will, and if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we ask of Him.

Now we can understand Hebrews 4 vs 16, "Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." This love life permits us to walk into the very presence of the Father. You may go into the ‘Throne Room’ and stand in His presence and make your petitions known in the name of Jesus, and as sure as you do, the petition is heard.

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of love for You and for others, that I may walk in love pleasing You in all my ways because I do Your will—obey Your commandments, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

WALK IN LOVE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY AUGUST 26, 2022.

SUBJECT: WALK IN LOVE!

Memory verse: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another." (John 13 vs 34.)

READ: Ephesians 5 vs 1 - 2:

5:1: Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.

5:2: And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering, and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.

INTIMATION:

Love concerns the attitude of one toward another. Love is the essential nature of God. It can be known only from the actions it prompts. For instance, God’s Love is seen in the gift of His Son as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world: “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (First John 4 vs 9 - 11.)

Love has its perfect expression among us in the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s love is obviously not the love of complacency, or affection, that is, it was not drawn out of any excellency in its objects—not of any good in us; “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5 vs 8.) It was an exercise of the Divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself. God sent Jesus to die for us, not because we were good enough, but just because He loved us, in accord with His nature.

In respect of love used for God, it expresses the deep and constant love and interest of a perfect Being—God—towards entirely unworthy objects—us, exchanging what is of limitless value with what is completely worthless! It produces and fosters a reverential love in us towards the Giver—God, and a practical love towards us that are partakers of the same, and should put a desire in us to help others to seek the God.

Christian love has God for its primary object, and expresses itself first of all in implicit obedience to His commandments; “If you love Me, keep My commandments.’ (John 14 vs 15.) Self-will, that is, self-pleasing, is the negation of love to God. Christian love, whether exercised toward the brethren, or toward men generally, is not an impulse from the feelings, it does not always run with the natural inclinations, nor does it spend itself only upon those for whom some affinity is discovered; it ought to have no boundaries.

Love seeks the welfare of all (Romans 15 vs 2), and works no ill to any (Romans 13 vs 8 - 10). Love seeks opportunity to do good to all, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith (Galatians 6 vs 10). See further First Corinthians 13 and Colossians 3 vs 12 - 14.

Our memory verse embodies the concept of walking in love. For the Bible says, “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore; love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13 vs 8 - 10.)

Love is considered something we owe, because we are permanently in debt to Christ for the lavish love He has poured out on us. The only way we can even begin to repay this debt is by fulfilling our obligation to love others in turn. Because Christ’s love will always be infinitely greater than ours, we will always have the obligation to love our neighbor. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15 vs 13.) We may not have to die for someone, but there are other ways to practice sacrificial love; listening, helping, encouraging, giving, and so on.

Walking in love fulfills the law. For the Scripture says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6 vs 2.) Look around you today, and you will definitely find someone that needs your love—your help, and seize the opportunity to help the person, and thereby walk in love.

Prayer: Abba Father, give me the grace to be like You, and endue me with the spirit of love for my neighbor, that I may walk in love, fulfilling Your law, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Shadows and Streams

 

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. (Psalm 104:31–34)

God rejoices in the works of creation because they point us beyond themselves to God himself.

God means for us to be stunned and awed by his work of creation. But not for its own sake. He means for us to look at his creation and say: If the mere work of his fingers (just his fingers! Psalm 8:3) is so full of wisdom and power and grandeur and majesty and beauty, what must this God be like in himself!

These are but the backside of his glory, as it were, darkly seen through a glass. What will it be to see the glory of the Creator himself! Not just his works! A billion galaxies will not satisfy the human soul. God and God alone is the soul’s end.

Jonathan Edwards expressed it like this:

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. . . . [These] are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the ocean.

This is why Psalm 104 comes to a close in verses 31–34 with a focus on God himself. “I will sing praise to my God while I have being. . . . For I rejoice in the Lord.” In the end it will not be the seas or the mountains or the canyons or the water spiders or the clouds or the great galaxies that fill our hearts to breaking with wonder and fill our mouths with eternal praise. It will be God himself.

WHEN YOU ARE NOT MOTIVATED BY LOVE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY AUGUST 25, 2022.

SUBJECT : WHEN YOU ARE NOT MOTIVATED BY LOVE!

Memory verse: "For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Romans 13 vs 9.)

READ: Galatians 5 vs 14 - 15:

5:14: For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

5:15: But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!

INTIMATION:

Our vertical relationship with God is established on the foundation of love. Our horizontal relationship with our fellow man is established on love. The principle of love permeates and identifies the very nature of Christianity. This is the principle by which one can determine both the true God and those who serve Him. 

God demands that our motivation in all we do should be by the geatest gift of love. That our driving force should be ‘love,’—love for Him and others.  When we believers lose the motivation of love, we become critical of others. We stop looking for good in them and see only their faults. Soon we lose our unity. 

When you are not motivated by love, you form the habit of talking behind someone’s back. You will then be focusing on others’ shortcomings instead of their strengths. When this habit persists, remind yourself of Jesus’ command to love others as you love yourself. When you begin to feel critical of someone, make a list of that person’s positive qualities and harp on them. When problems need to be addressed, confront in love rather than gossip.

When we are not motivated by love in our doings, we are actually breaking God’s law. Examine your attitude and actions toward others. Do you build people up or tear them down? When you are ready to criticize someone, remember God’s law of love and say something good instead. Saying something beneficial to others will cure you of finding fault and increase your ability to obey God’s law of love. 

When you are motivated by love you see that others are fed, clothed, and housed as well as they can be. You will be concerned about issues of social justice. But when you are not motivated by love, the reverse is the case. Loving others as ourselves means actively working to see that their needs are met. Interestingly, people who focus on others rather than on themselves rarely suffer from low self-esteem. 

In the passage we read today, the apostle Paul tells us to love others as much as we love ourselves. Somehow many of us have gotten the idea that self-love is wrong. But if this were the case, it would be pointless to love our neighbors as ourselves. But the apostle Paul explains what he means by self-love. Even if you have low self-esteem, you probably don’t willingly let yourself go hungry. You take care of your body and may even exercise. You clothe yourself reasonably well. You make sure there is a roof over your head. You try not to let yourself be cheated or injured. This is the kind of love we need to have for our neighbors. 

Christians must obey the law of love, which supersedes both spiritual and civil laws. How easy it is to excuse our indifference to others merely because we have no legal obligation to help them and even to justify harm on them if our actions are technically legal! But Jesus does not leave loopholes in the law of love. Whenever love demands it, we are to go beyond humans’ legal requirements and imitate the God of love. 

Law governs our interaction with one another. Love of our neighbor motivates us to act in a lawful manner on our relationships with one another as the organic body in society. When we are motivated by love, we go beyond the limitations of law or commandments. But when we are not motivated by love, we are strictly limited by law and commandments in our doings. 

Love will carry one beyond the limitations of law. We could keep all the commandments, but still be limited in our relational behavior with our neighbor. Love always goes beyond a list of commandments. Commandments limit, love expands, commandments restricts, but love frees. Commandments lead us to believe how little we can do; love opens the door to unlimited possibilities. 

When we are not motivated by love, we ignore the rich by believing they have they need. We should not ignore the rich, because then we would be withholding our love. But we must not favor them for what they can do for us, while ignoring the poor who can offer us seemingly so little in return. We must treat people as we would want to be treated. 

Prayer: Abba Father, Your love has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who was given to us. Endue me with the spirit of lovely motivations in all I do, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

When God’s Love Is Sweetest

 

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. (Ephesians 5:25–26)

If you only hope for unconditional love from God, your hope is great, but too small.

Unconditional love from God is not the sweetest experience of his love. The sweetest experience is when his love says, “I have made you so much like my Son that I delight to see you and be with you. You are a pleasure to me, because you are so radiant with my glory.”

This sweetest experience is conditional on our transformation into the kind of people whose emotions and choices and actions please God.

Unconditional love is the source and foundation of the human transformation that makes the sweetness of conditional love possible. If God did not love us unconditionally, he would not penetrate our unattractive lives, bring us to faith, unite us to Christ, give us his Spirit, and make us progressively like Jesus.

But when he unconditionally chooses us, and sends Christ to die for us, and regenerates us, he puts in motion an unstoppable process of transformation that makes us glorious. He gives us a splendor to match his favorite kind: his own.

We see this in Ephesians 5:25–27. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [unconditional love], that he might sanctify her . . . and present the church to himself in splendor” — the condition in which he delights.

It is unspeakably wonderful that God would unconditionally set his favor on us while we are still unbelieving sinners. The ultimate reason this is wonderful is that this unconditional love brings us into the everlasting enjoyment of his glorious presence.

But the apex of that enjoyment is that we not only see his glory, but also reflect it. “The name of our Lord Jesus [will] be glorified in you, and you in him” (2 Thessalonians 1:12).

LET ALL YOU DO BE MOTIVATED BY LOVE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 24, 2022.

SUBJECT : LET ALL YOU DO BE MOTIVATED BY LOVE!

Memory verse: "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing." (First Corinthians 13 vs 3.)

READ: First Corinthians 13 vs 1 - 3:

13:1: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

13:2: And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

13:3: And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

INTIMATION:

Love is having great affection for, feeling a passionate attraction to, and being fond of something or someone. God demands that our motivation in all we do should be by the geatest gift of love. That our driving force should be ‘love,’—love for Him and others.  God considers love as the greatest gift anybody can give, and demonstrated it when He Himself gave to the world His only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins out of His love for the world.

Jesus gave His life for us out of love of the Father, that we might have our own life and live through Him. He considered it the greatest gift anyone can give, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15 vs 13). No such gift has ever been given, and I doubt the possibility of ever having any gifts greater than this; exchanging something of inestimable value with something completely worthless. 

However, we may not have to die for someone, but there are other ways to practice sacrificial love: listening, helping, encouraging, giving, sharing in grief etc. Sacrificial love is demonstrated in stretching yourself more than normal in offering yourself in love for God and others.

In giving His Son, the driving force to God is love for the world; “For God so loved the world that He gave...” (John 3 vs 16.) The apostle John said that by such act of God, in given His Son who laid down His life for us, we know love. And that should be our motive in all we do; we should love one another and ready to ‘lay down our lives for others,’—that is, serving others with no thoughts of receiving anything in return. 

John further stated that “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (First John 4 vs 7 - 8.) The person who in not motivated by love does not know the first thing about God, because God is Love—so you can’t know Him if you don’t love. 

The Scripture makes it clear that no one has seen God, ever, or can see God. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and His perfect love becomes complete in us. And this is how we know we are living steadily and deeply in Him and He in us. When we take up permanent residence in a life out of love, we live in God and God lives in us.

Love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church—the body of Christ. Great faith, acts of dedication and sacrifice, and miracle-working power, all have little effect without love. Love makes our actions and gifts useful. You aren't going to see a supernatural return on your giving when you do it with the wrong motive. It has to come from a humble and loving heart that desires to bless other people. The motive behind what you do is more important than the action itself, and giving with a wrong heart motive is of no benefit. Although people have different gifts, but love is available to everyone.

In the passage we read today, we can understand that you can go so far as to make the ultimate sacrifice of laying down your life, but it will be of no benefit to you if it isn't done out of a motivation of love. It will bless the person you sacrifice yourself for, but it isn't going to result in a supernatural return for you. 

Jesus gave us the ‘Greatest Commandment’ of love, saying, “And You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. ‘This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There are no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12 vs 30 - 31.)

In John 14 vs 23, Jesus said, “…If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” And His word is the commandment He has given us as stated above. The life of “love” for God and others engenders companionship of God and His Son with you. What love can be more enduring than this?

God’s laws are not burdensome. They can be reduced to two simple principles: Love God and love others. These commands are from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6 vid 5; Leviticus 19 vs 18). When you love God completely and care for others as you care for yourself, then you have fulfilled the intent of the Ten Commandments and the other Old Testament laws. 

According to Jesus, these two commandments summarize all God’s laws. Let them rule your thoughts, decisions, and actions. Let sincere love for God and others be your motivating factor in all you do. When you are uncertain about what to do, ask yourself which course of action best demonstrates love for God and love for others.

Prayer: Abba Father, Your love has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who was given to us. Give me the grace to showcase my abiding in You, and You in me by my love for You and others, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

The Message of Creation

 

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:22–23)

It would be a great folly and a great tragedy if a man loved his wedding ring more than he loved his bride. But that is what this passage says has happened.

Human beings have fallen in love with the echo of God’s excellence in creation, and lost the ability to hear the incomparable, original shout of love and power and glory.

The message of creation is this:

There is a great God of glory and power and generosity behind all this awesome universe; you belong to him because he made you. He is patient with you in sustaining your rebellious life. Turn and bank your hope on him and delight yourself in him, not merely his handiwork.

According to Psalm 19:1–2, day pours forth the “speech” of that message to all who will listen in the day, speaking with blindingly bright sun and blue sky and clouds and untold shapes and colors and beautiful designs of all things visible. Night pours forth the “knowledge” of the same message to all who will listen at night, speaking with great dark voids and summer moons and countless stars and strange sounds and cool breezes and northern lights.

Day and night are saying one thing: God is glorious! God is glorious! God is glorious! Turn away from the creation as your supreme satisfaction, and delight yourself in the Lord of glory.