How Deep Is Your Love?
Good Morning Friends,
We are to live creatively, working for the common good. That is how we are supposed to live in community, figuring out how to help one another to be better. Friends, one of the first rules of engagement in this work is to understand that we all have burdens. That makes the problem pretty complex. No one escapes sorrow… Everyone needs help. So be kind. In dealing with each other’s problems and challenges we are to have a Spirit of gentleness. How Deep Is Your Love?
Scripture: My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads. Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.
Galatians 6:1-10 (NRSV)
He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40 (NRSV)
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:18-19 (NRSV)
Message: Today’s question is worth asking ourselves as well of asking of God. Do we really love Christ more than any other thing? How deep is God’s love for us? The Bee Gees asked the question that was part of the Movie, Saturday Night Fever, and they won a Grammy in 1977 for the song.
But I doubt they were focused on the spiritual side of the words though one could interpret them that way. You see the test and proof of love is always trust and obedience. And I have a problem trusting mainline music. Still God will not leave his children loveless or comfortless and will use culture to accomplish it, so perhaps I should not be so harsh. The thing is that passion has to be at the heart of the matter. We are to believe that God’s love never fails…that God’s care is proof of love. Here honesty is critical. You cannot pull the wool over God’s eyes. He knows your heart and what is going on in your mind. Having said that, it is wise, I think, to sometimes shoulder one another’s burdens if we can and especially so if the spirit moves us. But don’t get in the way of the Holy Spirit convicting someone. Still do show love to one another in a way that helps fulfill the law of Christ. Yes we are to love as a witness that we have been loved. But sometimes love and the Spirit must take the form of personal responsibility. We cannot shoulder each other’s active sins. Sinners cannot choose the consequences if they have not repented. To address those problems God’s help is needed. And there is always victory in Jesus if we want it. If we are truly repentant Jesus is the great burden bearer. He is able to carry us and our burdens and when He does some of those burdens will be shared with members of the Body of Christ to show forth their love. Yes, some problems are meant to be shouldered and others shared and still others shed. Such is love.
Pray we appreciate the depth of Christ’s love on the cross. Pray we realize how little we deserve this love. Pray we rejoice in the amazing benefits we receive in being loved deeply. Pray we see the depth of Christ’s love for us in the reality that it is offered freely to liberate our souls. Pray our love for one another would grow and deepen. Pray we are rooted in the belief that the more we believe the more deeply we will experience the love of Christ for us. Pray also that God would give us a spirit of gentleness, creativity and insight into what burdens of others we might share. Pray we invest our time, talent and treasure wisely, knowing that in the fruits of the solution are often the seeds of the next problem.
Pray we realize that God’s love is deeper than our problems.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 