Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to take in the lyrics and hear the poignant song, sung by Jackie DeShannon, What the World Needs Now Is Love. written in the 1960s as a plea for God to bring His love into a world in desperate need Him. … Can’t we pray the same thing today?
Highlight Passage - NKJV Genesis 50: 20-21 … Where a wall of hatred had been built by Joseph’s brothers in the past, Joseph tore it down with God’s love …
20 But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. 21 Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
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Highlight Context #1 - Genesis 50: 15-21 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … Joseph’s brother got a lesson in God’s love
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Reference Passage #1 … John 3: 16 [NKJV] … I think any reader here will know this one
Reference Passage #2 … John 13: 34-35 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK … Our Lord’s love commandment
Reference Passage #3 … 1st John 4: 17-19 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK … Love casts out all fear and tears down the walls of hatred
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by David MacCasland, reminded me that 25 years ago, on this very date, it was announced that the Berlin Wall could come down as a symbol of separation and hatred. Many of us remember the images (see attached photo) of that wall being torn down as the people of western Europe could flow freely back into what had been a repressive east Germany.
In the mid 1960s when the song I have linked any readers to above was written by Burt Bacharach, it became a protest song against the war in Viet Nam as well as against the racial prejudice which was prevalent in those day, especially in the south of the US. And Bacharach’s anthem of love was proclaimed as the antidote for hatred and walls built by mankind to divide ourselves. The song was recorded and became one of the cries which ultimately produced walls like the one in Berlin to come down.
However, I think I could get an “AMEN” from any reader here today if I claim that the world still needs to surrender to the love of God as the answer which Joseph represented in today’s highlight passage (see Genesis 50: 15-21 linked above). Joseph’s brothers had built up a wall of hatred for their younger brother; and in the highlight scene in Genesis 50, Joseph showed his brothers that God’s love, exhibited by Joseph, could dispel any human wall of hatred.
That’s what Jesus’ message of love was all about in both John 3: 16 and John 13: 34-35. It’s what John also wrote about in his own love-letter in 1st John 4: 17-19. It’s what God put on display when the wall of hatred in Berlin came down on this date in 1989. But my friends, what the world STILL needs now is God’s love - sweet love. And just as Joseph was to his brothers, we can be agents of God’s love in our world - maybe even today.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, help me to be an agent of Your love to others, tearing down any walls I see between me and anyone else in my life. 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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