Day 335: This Is True Love

1 John 4:7-12

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

It is widely known that our foundation is built on love, God is love, our very existence stems from love. We talk so much about how important it is to love God and love people. This message will never get old. Throughout the bible the common theme is love. God loved us first. God is love. God so loved… Love God, love your neighbor. It is so important that we as people of God move in love. The main reason being is that God is love, with that being said, how can we move in any other way? How can we walk without love if we walk with God, it is impossible. Everything about God screams loves. If we do not know God then we do not know love, it’s that simple.

God shows us how to love, He shows us what real and true love is. He shows us through His actions, God loves us enough to give us life and provide for us. He loves us enough to create an entire universe that will sustain us until we are united with Him in eternity. The greatest acts of love we have ever seen is when He sent His Son to die on a cross for us, and when Jesus willingly took our shame and death so that we wouldn’t have to. That right there is true love.

As the scripture says real love is not that we loved God but God first loved us. We did not do anything to deserve this love, there was nothing we did to make God love us He just loves us. That’s it, He loves us, that love is unconditional. This type of love never runs out. If one thing I know. I know that God will never stop loving us. Even when we are living in sin, we know that because while in our sin God loved us enough to sacrifice His own child for us to have a life that would be freed from the bondage of sin. The scripture then tells us to take that love that God has given us and love His people. He teaches us how to love so that we can love others. So that we can give people a glimpse of  what God’s love is like. The love of God lives in us, God is in us and when that is true, when God has taken root in ur hearts we will love people with a Godly love that we never knew existed. That type of love is when we can’t really help ourselves. We just love. Even when we want to be mad at people and hold a grudge we can’t because God is love, and that love is running through us.

There’s an old saying that love makes the world go round. I cannot say that that statement is not true, because love is literally holding earth in place, keeping the world turning as the seasons change. Love can change people. Love can pierce evil. Love can heal or soften a broken and hardened heart. We need love, love is what keeps us going everyday. Love is our foundation. Life is so much better when we love. Through love comes peace, joy, kindness, forgiveness, humility, faith. Love makes the world a better place. Thank God that He is love.

Response/ Prayer Time

Take the time to respond to what we discussed today. Talk to God about love and true love. Talk to Him about loving our neighbors. Whatever is on your heart, pour it out to God.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 336!

Day 330: We Have An Advocate

1 John 2:1-2

“He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”
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Advocate-a person who pleads for or in behalf of another; intercessor.

We all want someone to be on our side. We all look for someone at some point in our lives to be an advocate for us to intercede for us and speak up for us when no one else is listening to us. It feels good to have someone fighting for us and pleading on our behalf. It feels even better to have someone on our side or in our corner even when we’re wrong. It’s always nice to have someone rooting for us and having our back through our darkest times in our lives. An advocate is someone who fights for you, someone who pleads and prays to God on your behalf. We all have one.  Someone is fighting for us, someone is in heaven sitting at the right hand of God pleading our case. Interceding on our behalf, repairing our relationship with God.  That someone is Jesus. We have an advocate that died for us, and rose again. We have an advocate that continues to plead our case. How great it is to have an advocate that not only fights for us and intercedes for us in wrong, but He calls us to repentance to right those wrongs. Jesus doesn’t walk away from us in fact He is the one praying for another chance. He is the one that made it possible for us to have another chance.

Sometimes walking through this life all we want is someone to understand, or sometimes all we want is someone to pray for us and help through whatever it is we are going through. I cannot count how many time I have had encounters with people who have said, “If people only knew what I was going through…” There have been so many times in my life when all I wanted was someone to pray for me, because I felt like I couldn’t do it myself. There’s two things I’d like to point out here. Jesus understands. Jesus knows what we are going through, He knows how are and taxing life can be sometimes. He also has faith in His people, He knows that we will get it right. Jesus has more faith in us than we have in ourselves, sometimes we give up on ourselves. We give up trying to do what is right because we continue to fall. But Jesus is picking us up every time and putting us back on our feet. Jesus is in God’s ear advocating for us every second of the day, we are like His cause. He carried a cross to calvary and was nailed to it, so that we can live. He always had us and still has us in His heart. One thing I know for sure is that Jesus will not give up on us.

Second, we have to learn to be advocates for one another. We must learn how to pray for one another, and intercede on someone else’s behalf. Sometimes all someone needs is to be prayed for, not told that they need prayer, but to be prayed for. One thing I know for sure is that the power of prayer can change things, it can make things happen. If we just take the time to pray for that someone who is struggling, pray for that person who is continuously falling into sin. If we just take the time to pray for them, God will work a miracle in them that we never saw coming. We live in the generation of tweeting out prayers, #PrayFor… or sending out a tweet to someone in need and saying “you are in my prayers”. We get these tags trending but how many of us are actually praying how many of us are taking the time to pray for our brothers and sisters. I can tell you right now that I can do more and I am going to do more. The point that I want to make here is that sometimes we have to plead someone else’s case. Sometimes we have to sit ourselves aside and go to God on behalf of someone else. That’s how this “love your neighbor as yourself” thing works. It’s what Jesus would do.

All this to say, we have an advocate in Jesus, and we have to be an advocate for someone else.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had an experience where you knew that Jesus was up there in heaven interceding for you?
2. How many times have you been an advocate for someone else?
3. What more can you do to love your neighbor as yourself?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Take the time to thank Jesus that He is an advocate for us all. Take the time to pray for someone, if there is someone you need to pray for do so, and if you feel led to reach out and pray with them do that as well.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 331!