I pray that you have enjoyed the week, and are ready to embark on a new week! I've been hearing great messages all week and it was difficult to decide which one to share. I did notice a similar focus, LOVE. Many ministers and pastors are ministering on Love. Most importantly, the fact that Faith works by Love. "What makes a difference is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 (Voice)
We spend so much time praying and believing, but it's important to know we can hinder our own answers to prayer by failing to love. In 1 Peter 3:7, husbands are warned, "if you don’t treat her as you should, your prayers will not get ready answers." (Living Bible) We are very familiar with 1 Corinthians 13. It's used in many weddings, but do we apply it to our daily unromantic lives?
"Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
That's a lot! Especially when we are faced daily with situations, and circumstances, and opportunities to fight back. Be encouraged! God never asks us to do anything that is impossible. He would be unjust to tell us to give this type of Love if it were not possible! It's possible and we can do it.
1 John 4:4-21 says, "Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God’s child. And so everyone who loves knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. He sent his Son as the way to take away our sins.
That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us. If we love each other, God’s love has reached its goal—it is made perfect in us.
We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because he gave us his Spirit. We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world, and this is what we tell people now. Anyone who says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” is a person who lives in God, and God lives in that person. So we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.
God is love. Everyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them. If God’s love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus. Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is his punishment that makes a person fear. So his love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.
We love because God first loved us. If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him. God gave us this command: If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters." (Easy-to-Read Version)
Love and prayers, Cynthia
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