Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of song and lyrics from the group Hillsong singing … God Is Love … poignantly singing of the reality of God’s eternal love, the love of the Father, Son, Spirit, is eternally found in all who receive Christ as Lord and Savior.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Matthew 3:16-17 [NLT] … 16 After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he [John the Baptist] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, Who brings me great joy.”
… God, the Father, declares His eternal love for His Son by sending His Spirit as dove to settle on His beloved Son.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Mathew 3:13-17 [NLT] …USE THIS LINK …
… When the Incarnate Son of God was baptized on earth, God, the Father, declared His everlasting and eternal love for His Son.
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Reference Passage : … John 17:22-24 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus prays to the Father that all Who are in Him experience the eternal love which is the essence of the Triune Godhead.
Reference Passage : … 1 Corinthians 13:13 [NLT] … 13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love..
… Love is eternal, … defining the essence and character of God.
Reference Passage : … 1 John 4:8 [NLT] … 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
… Since God is love, when love is expressed, God is shared.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Amy Peterson, used a personal story about a young person’s probing question about the essence of the eternal Godhead. … The ODB author wrote: “But if God has no beginning and no end, and has always existed, what was He doing before He created us? How did He spend His time?” Some precocious Sunday school student always asks this question when we talk about God’s eternal nature. I used to respond that this was a bit of a mystery. But recently I learned that the Bible gives us an answer to this question.
Children can often probe for deep truths, can’t they? And their questions, as the one expressed above, can uncover eternal truths, especially when God’s word itself helps to answer the questions. So, how do we answer this young person’s question?
And as ODB author, Amy Peterson, indicates, … God’s word gives us God’s own insights into the reality of Who God is and that His eternal love defines His essence. So, … if anyone reading here meditates on the scriptures cited above, we, who are in Christ, have experienced the reality of God when we received His saving love and when we share that love with others.
Because, since God is love (1John 4:8) we can know that love was before the beginning of the world because God was before the creation of the world.
Yes, the love expressed by the triune God, in and between the Trinity, has been there before time, as we know it, began. And that love was most powerfully expressed in the Love of the Father for His Son when Jesus, the Christ, set aside His glory and became a man, … to die on a cross, … to give His love, the love shared by the Triune God, to you and me.
So, knowing that God is love, I plan to share Him with someone today. How about you?
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Lord, Jesus, thank You for Your forever … ETERNAL … love for me.
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My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … King Jesus, … Precious Spirit … put someone in my life today to/for whom I can share Your love. … 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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