Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images from Joy Williams singing … Do They See Jesus In Me … poignantly singing of how we need to ask ourselves if other see the love of Jesus in the way we live.
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Highlight Verse[s]: 1John 4:16, … 19 [NLT] … 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love.
… 19 We love each other because He loved us first.
… The only way we can truly love another is to KNOW that God first loves us.
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Highlight Passage [context]: 1John 4:13-19 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… John writes to fellow Christians about our ability to love coming from God first loving us.
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Reference Passage : … John 3:16 [NIV] … 16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. …”
… Jesus declares just how much God loved (and loves) us!!
Reference Passage : … John 13:34-35 [NIV] … 34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.”
… Jesus makes it very clear how we can love each other as fellow Christians and show others that love a sign of being Christ’s disciples.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Kirsten Holmberg, uses a basketball analogy to illustrate how God intends us to work together to tackle life rather than go it alone. The ODB author wrote … “Bear” was a gift for my grandchild—a heaping helping of love contained in a giant stuffed animal frame. [see photo] Baby D’s response? First, wonder. Next, an amazed awe. Then, a curiosity that nudged a daring exploration. He poked his pudgy finger at Bear’s nose, and when the Bear tumbled forward into his arms he responded with joy joy JOY! Baby D laid his toddler head down on Bear’s fluffy chest and hugged him tightly. A dimpled smile spread across his cheeks as he burrowed deeply into Bear’s cushiony softness. The child had no idea of Bear’s inability to truly love him. Innocently and naturally, he felt love from Bear and returned it with all his heart.
Our ability to love others comes naturally as a child because God first loved us (see highlight and reference passages). But our ability to overcome our sin nature can only come from a born-again heart where one recognizes and exercises the love that God infuses into our hearts when we surrender to His loving grace at salvation and thru His sanctifying grace.
And really, Jesus declared all of this, thru the Apostle John, in John’s Gospel account and his letters to other Christians [see above]. So, … I stop to pray today that all reading here are true, born-again, disciples of King Jesus and show it every day by sharing the love of Christ with others (see John 15:33-34).
I’ll let you readers answer the question asked by Joy Williams in today’s linked song.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for giving us Your love.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, … King Jesus, … I pray, Lord, that all reading here can, and will, join me, to let others see the love of Christ being shared with them genuinely today. … 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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