TEACH ME TO LOVE
We never stop learning how to receive and extend God's love. Sometimes, the commandments to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" or "Love your neighbor as yourself" can sound routine to us. We can quote these verses without understanding the gravity and implications of inwardly understanding and outwardly demonstrating this commandment. The Bible teaches that God is love and that as followers of Christ, we will be recognized by the way we love one another. As we start sharp, we are called to observe, experience, and represent His love. We are only able to extend the amount of love that we are able to receive from God. God is the source of love and light in the world. Since God is love, we are called to be with love and to become love. The depths of God’s goodness and love are impossible for us to fully comprehend. God loves us so much that He sent His one, and only, Son to die on the cross to save us. Out of this overflow, we can share God’s love with the lost and found people in this world. Imagine the impact on the lives of others we can have by growing in our understanding and ability to receive and extend God’s love.
Application/ Reflection:
Scriptures:
1 John 4:19
We love each other because he loved us first.
1 John 4:7-10
7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Mark 12:30-31
30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’
31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!
Prayer:
God, I come to You today asking for a fresh understanding of Your love. I thank You for Your extravagant love which You demonstrated by sending Your Son to die for me to forgive my sins. I pray to experience Your love tangibly, transforming me to become more like You. Show me how I can better love myself and love those around me. I pray to be a vessel, quick to obey, and show Your love to the world! Change the way I love, renew the way I love, transform the way I love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen!
Today's Worship Selection - Elevation Worship "The Blessing"