November 25th, 2018
Devotional
“Marks of Methodism: Love Others” -
1 John 4: 7-21
Keep the sermon topic and Biblical text preaching all week by following Pastor Michelle on twitter @tinypastor and reading her sermon blog www.revmichelle.blogspot.com
Monday: “Love is from God” - 1 John 4: 7-10
Today’s passage is not admonishing a simple romantic understanding of love. No, this is loving through all times and situations. Love that is a choice that is beyond our emotional draw. This is the type of love that God has for us, no matter how we stray or who we demand God to be. Have you ever noticed that the attributes that people ascribe to God tell you a lot about who they want God to be in their life at that moment? Sometimes people around us claim that God is the great healer, often when they are in need of deep healing in their own lives or their loved ones. Sometimes people proclaim that God is ordered, when their life feels like it is swimming in chaos. But the author of 1 John cut through all of these other attributes that God posses to say that God is agape, love. Here he is taking a Greek word rarely used in everyday conversation and claiming it for the Christian community - God is love because God has acted in immeasurable love through Jesus Christ.
Have you ever pondered how uncontrollable love is? It is radical when we love those whom others deem to be unlovable. It is creative in expressing itself, especially when love goes beyond the bounds of an emotion and becomes an action. It is self-giving, open, and fluid. It is so much more than we could ever try to define it to be - just like the essence of God. God is bigger than our definitions, just as God’s love is bigger than any of our explanations.
How are a life of discipleship and connected?
Prayer: God, we thank you for the love you have shown to us in Jesus Christ. The love that will not let us go. The love that you showed for us even when we were far off. Let this love so take root in our lives that we cannot help but share it in the name of the Christ. Amen.
Tuesday: “Love God and Love One Another ” -1 John 4: 7, 11-12
Have any of you ever heard of Gary Chapman? Or perhaps of his famous book, The Five Love Languages? The basis premise of Chapman’s work, which takes on many different forms, is that often we do not appreciate the love that others have to offer because we cannot recognize it. A few years ago Chapman expanded his research and writing into the area of God’s love for us in the book The Love Languages of God: How to Feel and Reflect Divine Love. In his previous writing about human relationships, Chapman supposed that most of us really only communicate love to another person one or two ways, with one being our primary form of expressing love. We, as human beings, like to receive love in the same ways that we most express it, in other words we stick inside of our love comfort zone. But in the Love Languages of God, Chapman reminds readers that God is not limited in the expression of Divine love. In fact, God can express love in a myriad of ways simultaneously. God can speak words of affirmation to us through prayer. God spends quality time with us. God has lavished gifts upon us. God has sacrificially acted on our behalf. And God wraps us in the comfort of Divine presence, just to name a few. God can express love in countless ways, because God is the only being who is love. Love in its most unadulterated form. Love beyond measure or qualification. God’s love is perfect.
This passage, however, does start out by telling us to love God, the great lover of all. It starts out by tellings us to love one another, because love is of God. It tells us to love one another as a testimony to how God has loved us in the past and will continue to love us in the future.
How does the love of God in your life lead your outward expressions of your faith?
Prayer: Lord, we know that the love you have for us is the love you have for the world. It is the love that led you to give your life on the cross that whoever believes in you may find true Life. Lord, may we share this love with open hearts and open lives so that others may come to know the love of the Savior. Amen.
Wednesday: “Abide and Love” - 1 John 4: 13-16
Love is what we are universally striving for as humans. No one wants to go through life without feeling loved. If any of us should understand love, even a little bit, it would be Christians, because God demonstrated Divine love for us in the ultimate way. The way that we celebrate each and every single time we come to the communion table. But we are not called to just say that we love God, we are to act like it by loving our neighbor, even when it seems the hardest or we simply do not feel like it. Love is not simply an ideal for us, or even a fruit, it is a relationship.
Who do you feel to share the love of God with this week through word and action?
Prayer: Lord, help us to listen to your all in our lives. The call to love. May we so posture ourselves in prayer, that we seek your wisdom and guidance in how we live our days in a way that reflects your love. Amen.
Thursday: “We Love Because He Loves” - 1 John 4: 17-19
Do you know someone in your life who is yearning to feel loved? Needing to hear that God loves them and that then seeing that demonstrated by your attitude and actions towards them? Can you see yourself inviting them to this church as a place to experience love? I hope that this is a church where you can invite people to feel the love of God and neighbor, authentically. I hope that you can find a way in your daily living to let people see the love of God in you, so it can be revealing of the nature of God to them. For those who love God, must also love their brothers and sisters.
How are you feeling a particular call to reach out in love?
Prayer: Lord, give us hearts of reflection this day to examine the blind spots in our lives. The places where we could love better. Where we could love with more boldness. Lord remind us that this gift of love that we offer is first and foremost the fruit of your love working in our lives. Amen.
Friday: “Liars or Lovers” - 1 John 4:20-21
For a few years I attended a church where people went around proclaiming that they loved Jesus. Which was all well and good, except for the fact that they didn’t act like they loved each other. In fact, they didn’t even act like they could tolerate, let alone like or love, the other believers in their community. It was an extremely disparaging situation, and the church stagnated, wondering why it was not growing. Slowly but surely they started to realize that loving God requires is to love others. They are not two separate things. There is no way that we can love God who is unseen, without loving our neighbor who is right in front of us.
Loving each other is difficult. Especially if we think that loving each other means that we are emotionally drawn to one another or that we even like each other all the time. We live in a world that likes to keep us divided by our race, gender, economic status, and social location among other things, and becomes a restless place when we practice true love, through action, that transcends these barriers. The kind of love that God models for us and has offered us through grace, is transformative for our relationships and our culture. In fact, those who say that they love God, but say that they hate their brother or sisters are liars.
How can you love even we you do not feel like it?
How do you rely on God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s guidance to love others?
Prayer: Lord, we confess that we are an imperfect people who do not always get love right. At times we forget why we love others in the first place. Renew in us a spirit of love so that we can testify for your Kingdom. Amen.
Saturday: Preparing for the Word
You are invited to read and pray this week’s text and topic: “The Women of Christmas: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” - Luke 1: 19-25
Family Activity: Think of some people you know who you could show God’s love to. How can you let them know that God loves them?
No comments:
Post a Comment