Passage of the Day: Romans 5: 5 – 8 … 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
My Journal for Today: If one believes what the Apostle Paul is saying in today’s passage, as I do, he or she has to be bursting with assurance and gratitude. That word picture Paul uses in [Rom. 5: 5 in bold and underlined above for emphasis] … of God pouring out His love into the heart of any repentant, believing sinner drives me to want to share that love with others, especially to Christians who have trouble understanding or walking in faith with their salvation. You may or may not be one of those; but if you are, maybe this devotional was given to me on this day just for you.
The term “poured out,” also translated “shed forth” in the KJV, is the Greek word “ekcheo,” which according to John MacArthur’s Strength for Today and my study from Strong’s Greek Concordance in the Blue Letter Bible online program, means to burst forth in abundance as if a dam had burst and water was pouring forth from the breech in the dam. And though we, as sinners (see Rom. 3: 23, which you probably have memorized – our should) have hearts dammed up by evil/deceit (see Jer. 17: 9), God was willing to break the dam blocking my receipt of His love and to pour His love into a heart like mine by the shedding of Christ’s blood (you simply must put Rom. 5: 8 into your heart and, of course, John 3: 16, two of the most hopeful and helpful verses in all of the NT).
As the contemporary song declares, “Amazing love, how can it be … that my King would die for me?!” And it is that love, bursting forth from His heart into mine, that now can be shared with confidence with others. It is the expression in a believer’s life, like mine, of another great memory verse (Eph. 2: 10). The flow of God from my sinner’s heart, made right by God, at times just gushes forth [again in the Greek, “ekcheo”] as I’m just compelled to share my faith or God’s truth with others. But because it is God’s love and not my own, one can see how I would feel so compelled.
May we, who call ourselves “Christians,” always allow God’s love to “ekcheo” from our hearts whenever we encounter an unbeliever who is lost or a believer who is waning in faith.
My Prayer Today: Your love courses from me, Lord. Amen
PS - Blogger’s Note: You’ll note several verses in today’s entry to which I’ve expressed the hope that you have them memorized, internalized, and personalized in your hearts. I can’t tell you how important it is to have these and many other verses/passages captured in your mind/heart. But if you do a meditation/study of all of Psalm 119, you will come away with the power and import of God’s word and an understanding of my drive to memorize God’s word.
Showing posts with label witness of love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label witness of love. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Monday, November 15, 2010
2010 – November 15 – Known by Our Love
Study from God’s Word… From the so-called “Upper Room Discourse,” John records Jesus’ sharing with His anxious/confused inner 11 Disciples in John 15-16 and then His prayers for them (and us) in John, Chapters 17 … Passage for Reflection: John 17: 23 … NIV May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them as you have loved Me.
My Journal for Today: Normally, when I’m doing my own morning devotional journal entries, I wait to the end of my summary of what the Lord has revealed to me that day to share LaGard Smith’s daily and sometimes sobering question. But today I’m going to do that right up front, as today he wrote, ”If the world based its judgment about Christ solely upon how I love fellow believers, would they move nearer to Christ or farther away?”
In today’s highlight text we have Jesus openly praying that His followers thereafter, which, most certainly, includes all who claim to be “Christian” today, would be unified in their witness of love for Jesus, which He said would manifest itself most openly in the love Christians would have for one another. So, I’m back to the challenge question from Dr. Smith for today; and I honestly think I do okay on that one – not great … but okay. I’ll let you search yourself, if you’re reading here, to see if others would move closer to wanting to know Jesus by the way you treat other Christians.
But – and this is another big “BUT” – it concerns me that Christianity may be driving people away from Christ because of how we are perceived by the world as bickering with (or maybe it would be more accurate to say “fighting with”) each other as Christians. First, there is the big split which occurred in the 16th century with Protestantism splitting away from Roman Catholic and/or Easter Orthodox doctrinal beliefs. And now, how does the world view all the division they see in modern day denominationalism? And there is the confusion the world has to see with non-Christian sects like Mormonism or the Watchtower, who are in open competition with so-called “Orthodox Christianity,” as we all witness to convince non-believers that each of us has the only way to go to heaven.
And finally the world sees so-called conservative, evangelical Christians railing, as admittedly I do sometimes, about new-age teachers like Oprah Winfrey, who claim that all faith systems have commonality and you can come to God, or go to heaven, by following any of those belief systems. Won’t the world see it as disunity when someone like me would claim that, as Jesus Himself said in John 14: 16, Christ is the only way to heaven?
All this divisiveness has got to be seen as disunity and lacking in God’s love by the world; and at times I must admit that it’s hard to stand in the gap for orthodox truth and be unified in the bond of Christianity. But one thing is clear that I can do; and that is to love others as Jesus loved me. And when I think of how patient He was in wooing and drawing me to Himself, I need to be similarly loving to others – especially to other Christians … but extending that love as well to non-Christians.
I’m dong better and better with this; but I still have a long way to go to become the Christian Jesus prayed for in John 17; … so, I move on … trying to let God transform me into the disciple my Lord prayed for in that Upper Room the night He was betrayed and then taken to be crucified.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, help me to be the loving disciple I need to be for others to see You in me. Amen
My Journal for Today: Normally, when I’m doing my own morning devotional journal entries, I wait to the end of my summary of what the Lord has revealed to me that day to share LaGard Smith’s daily and sometimes sobering question. But today I’m going to do that right up front, as today he wrote, ”If the world based its judgment about Christ solely upon how I love fellow believers, would they move nearer to Christ or farther away?”
In today’s highlight text we have Jesus openly praying that His followers thereafter, which, most certainly, includes all who claim to be “Christian” today, would be unified in their witness of love for Jesus, which He said would manifest itself most openly in the love Christians would have for one another. So, I’m back to the challenge question from Dr. Smith for today; and I honestly think I do okay on that one – not great … but okay. I’ll let you search yourself, if you’re reading here, to see if others would move closer to wanting to know Jesus by the way you treat other Christians.
But – and this is another big “BUT” – it concerns me that Christianity may be driving people away from Christ because of how we are perceived by the world as bickering with (or maybe it would be more accurate to say “fighting with”) each other as Christians. First, there is the big split which occurred in the 16th century with Protestantism splitting away from Roman Catholic and/or Easter Orthodox doctrinal beliefs. And now, how does the world view all the division they see in modern day denominationalism? And there is the confusion the world has to see with non-Christian sects like Mormonism or the Watchtower, who are in open competition with so-called “Orthodox Christianity,” as we all witness to convince non-believers that each of us has the only way to go to heaven.
And finally the world sees so-called conservative, evangelical Christians railing, as admittedly I do sometimes, about new-age teachers like Oprah Winfrey, who claim that all faith systems have commonality and you can come to God, or go to heaven, by following any of those belief systems. Won’t the world see it as disunity when someone like me would claim that, as Jesus Himself said in John 14: 16, Christ is the only way to heaven?
All this divisiveness has got to be seen as disunity and lacking in God’s love by the world; and at times I must admit that it’s hard to stand in the gap for orthodox truth and be unified in the bond of Christianity. But one thing is clear that I can do; and that is to love others as Jesus loved me. And when I think of how patient He was in wooing and drawing me to Himself, I need to be similarly loving to others – especially to other Christians … but extending that love as well to non-Christians.
I’m dong better and better with this; but I still have a long way to go to become the Christian Jesus prayed for in John 17; … so, I move on … trying to let God transform me into the disciple my Lord prayed for in that Upper Room the night He was betrayed and then taken to be crucified.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, help me to be the loving disciple I need to be for others to see You in me. Amen
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