LifeLink Devotions (Click Link for Audio Blog)

Friday, November 19, 2021

Today we come to the fourth quality control test for a real church – love. To write a single devotional on the subject of love overwhelms me. If I were to write a daily devotional on every passage of Scripture that uses the word love, I would have material for the next 138 weeks. Obviously this is an important and vital subject from the heart of God, for God is love.

Our purpose in this study this week has been to evaluate the spiritual condition of the church that we attend in light of Paul’s words in Ephesians about what the church is.  In today’s Scripture we discover that the church, the whole body of Christ, is growing, and as it grows its distinguishing characteristic is to be love.

Ephesians 4:15-16  “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

What I would like us to do today is to consider the following passages of Scripture that speak about love within the fellowship of believers and its expression outward to the world. I pray that they will minister to our spirits.  

1 Peter 1:22  “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.”

1 Peter 2:17  “Show proper respect to everyone: love the brotherhood of believers…”

1 Peter 3:8  “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.”

1 Peter 4:8  “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

1 John 3:14-18  “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers…This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers…Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 

1 John 4:7-12  “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

I don’t know about you, but I am both convicted and blessed. Convicted that I do not love enough. Blessed to know that I can love to this extent because of God’s love in me.  So here are two action points:

1. Seek out those we already love and love them more. Do something unrequested and unreturnable.
2. Seek out those we don’t yet love and love them. Do something undeserved.

Have a great weekend showing God’s love to everyone.

Pastor John