Day 12
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” — Colossians 3:12&14
Almost 2100 years before Christ was born, God made a promise to Abraham. He said from Abraham would come a nation with descendents as plentiful as the stars in the sky, and from that nation would come “the Seed” that would bless the world (Galatians 3.16). God set apart His chosen people, the nation of Israel, with an everlasting covenant. “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” Deuteronomy 7:9. God’s ‘covenant love’ was for a nation that would bring His only begotten Son into the world; and in the New Covenant, the same love of God exists for the Church of Jesus Christ. God’s ‘common love’ is for the world and all humanity. There isn’t anyone we’ll meet anywhere who God does not love. Deuteronomy 10:17-18 says, “…the great God, mighty and awesome who shows no partiality; he defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.” It was for every nation, every tongue and every tribe God sent His Son…. for He so loved the world.
Out of His common love, His ‘centered love’ is what we experience individually as we enter into a personal relationship with Him. The fact that God is love is part of His immutability, but our personal experience of God’s love is subject to being in relationship with Him. We are all loved by God, but if we don’t respond to His love, there can be no experience of His love.
The evidence of our experience of God’s love is that we respond and, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30, which means that everything we do, everything our affection is placed on, everything our energy is engaged in, and every ambition we hold, will in some way be declaring, “God, I love you.” But then, Jesus also said, “My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12. Our love for God will be most tangibly expressed in His love to us flowing out through us to those around. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” John 13.35.
Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you so much for making me the object of your love. Help me to live every day as an expression of the fact I am loved, and that I love you with all my mind, my heart and my soul.
To reflect upon: In what way is my love for Jesus evident in all my other relationships? And in what ways do I pass it on?