Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to take in the lyrics and hear the group, Hillsong, singing the powerful song Amazing Love. especially with YouTube images reminding all who are saved by God’s amazing love and saving grace just how powerful that love was on that cross for a sinner like me.
Highlight Passage - NKJV Romans 5: 8 …
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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Highlight Context - NKJV: Romans 5: 1-8 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK … In spite of our sin [see Romans 3: 23] God loved us us anyway [see John 3: 16]
Reference Passage #1… 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 — GO TO THIS LINK … Could the essence of unconditional love (i.e., agape love) be more clearly defined?
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Bill Crowder, brought to me (and his readers) a poignant and pertinent reminder of what God’s love is all about; and he brings that reminder on a pagan holiday which does nothing but celebrate anti-love. On Halloween mankind wears masks to hide who we are; and we actually elevate our “trick-or-treat” culture to celebrate selfishness.
Yet, God’s love is the antithesis of halloween, isn’t it? And there’s little I could write here, except my remembrance of what is revealed in what I’ve copied and linked above for our study and meditation. Every so often, … especially on days like halloween, … we need to stop and remember just how far God’s love - the ultimate in unconditional love - went to save us sinners.
In spite of me, my Lord died ignominiously to save me. He knew me, yet He loved me anyway!! Yes, that is the love which Paul wrote about, inspired by God, in the love chapter of 1st Corinthians 13. It’s the essence of what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3: 16 (which I’m sure you know by heart and don’t need my copy/paste above).
The question before me (and you reading here) is are we choosing to live an agape-laden life? Are we choosing to love anyway as Christ’s life modeled and He preached on that hillside sermon over 2000 years ago [see Matthew, Chapters 5-7]? It’s good here on halloween to stop and pray that I will choose to love others as God loved me today.
My Prayer for Today … Lord; … help me to love others anyway as You loved me anyway! … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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