Revealing the Greater Love that Dwells Within Us

John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

The life of Jesus Christ was not the life of a mere man, but the life of a divine man who gave up His deity and His royalty in order to accept the calling of Almighty God to be the blood sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. Jesus took on this calling freely and voluntarily that He might secure our legal standing in the kingdom of God.

The moment that we accepted the salvation that Jesus made possible when He laid down His life for us, we were given the power and the calling to lay down our lives day after day for the people around us. This sacrificial calling is contrary to our human nature. Our flesh will fight us on every occasion, be it large or small, when we seek to emulate Jesus’ love for us in our service to others. And certainly, Satan will do his part to discourage us too.

Yet we can and will overcome the urges of Satan and our flesh, if we learn to rely on the urgings of the Holy Spirit. For we were not only given the calling to serve, we were also given the power to serve. We were given the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ to dwell within us. All we have to do is let the Spirit within us flow out of us.

Let us learn to love others as we love ourselves. Let us give up our lives in service to others. Let us reveal to the world the greater love that dwells within us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Son Jesus to die for us so that we would not remain separated from You for all eternity because of our sins. We praise Your Name for extending Your mercy so that we could accept the salvation that we did not earn and do not deserve. We pray, Father God, that the fullness of Your Holy Spirit will flow from us each day. May we learn to lay down our lives each day so that others may see the way, the truth and the life that is in Your Son, Jesus. We ask all these things in the name of the Slain Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

The Payment Plan for Redemption

Romans 1:14
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

Paul was inspired by his view that Jesus Christ was his spiritual creditor. He was constantly driven to impart all that he had received from Jesus to the world around him. It was impossible for him to contain what he had been given through grace. So it should be with us.

Redeemed by the blood, and converted by the grace of the Lord Jesus, we are altogether His. For His sake we are debtors to all men. To serve all men is our duty. We should readily impart to others what God has trusted to us. We should rejoice to make others joyful. We should take pleasure in communing with those who believe the same things with us. We should be ready to serve those who are not yet believers.

Let us be careful not to contain what has been poured out upon us. Let us prepare ourselves to be founts of living water. Let us allow the love of Our Savior to spill out from us to the world.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You providing Your Son, Jesus, to cleanse us of our sin debt for all eternity. Inspire us, Lord, to understand that through the gift of salvation we have become debtors to all men. Show us how to repay that debt through the services that You call us to do. Teach us how to impart the joy that You have given us. Equip us to share the good news with those who You bring into our lives. We pray that it may all be done for the honor and glory of the Blessed Trinity. We ask all these things in the name of Our Glorious Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

An Endless Spring of Love

1 John 4:16
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

God is love. His love is unconditional and without end. His love for us is expressed explicitly through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. His love for us is reinforced daily by the counsel of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Through His love, Almighty God gives us an unfailing hope for our future. Let us not lose sight of the truth that our hope for our future is so much more than how we feel about our future or what the world tells us about our future. Our hope rests upon a very special love gift from God. Our hope is built upon the Good News of God for the world that He loves us so much that He gave us His Son so that we may have eternal life.

Through His love, Almighty God also gives us His Holy Spirit to stand by us, to give us the strength to bear all things that come against us and the spiritual maturity to endure all the tribulations that make up life on this earth. His grace is poured out on us in this manner so that we may overcome the world.

Most importantly, Almighty God created a spot in our hearts so that we could receive His love and return it to Him. He gave us the capacity to share His love with the world around us. He gave us the Holy Spirit so that our love could be an endless spring. When we are living in accordance with the Holy Spirit within us, we are capable of extraordinary service to those around us. By returning our love to the Father through our service to those around us, we become living testimonies of His perfect love.

Let us prepare our hearts to become vessels of God’s perfect love and forgiveness. Let us show the world His love through our compassionate sharing of the love He has given us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us unconditionally. We thank You that Your love flows to us endlessly. Prepare our hearts, Lord, so that we may become vessels of Your perfect love. Cleanse us, Lord, of anything in our hearts that would restrict the flow of Your love in our lives. May we bear much fruit for Your kingdom through the spontaneous release of Your love to the world around us. We pray, Father, that the world will be drawn to Your Son when they see Your love at work in us. We ask all these things in the name of the One who delights in our steadfast love, Jesus Christ.

Peace Through Simple Service

Luke 19:42
If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.

As Jesus weeped over Jerusalem, He spoke the words in Luke 19 to the Jews, who He knew would reject Him and His offer of salvation. Because they rejected His offer, He transferred His offer to the willing Gentiles.

This principle is carried out in a different way in our daily lives. Jesus prepares us to do His work and asks us to be obedient to His calling. Sometimes He will give us simple urgings in the spirit to do something nice for someone, to pray for someone, to forgive someone or to ask forgiveness from someone. Often His urging may be for a simple act to bring a smile upon the face of another. At other times, His bidding will have much more significant impact. Whatever He asks of us, if we accept His call, we will be given greater things to do for Him. We will experience the peace and comfort that flows from serving Him. If we do not accept His bidding, we will miss the peace He offers and we will miss a portion of the bigger plans that He has for our lives. Sadly, He will move on to find the one who is willing serve Him readily.

Let us not miss the satisfaction of living in the peace and comfort of the Lord. Let us eagerly accept and carry out any task, big or small, that the Lord is asking us to do. Let us discover how simple acts of obedience bring complete peace and comfort into our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for allowing us to serve You. We rejoice in knowing that You are pleased when we are obedient to Your urging. We pray that You make us sensitive to the work that You call us to do. May we find joy in even the smallest tasks. May it all bring honor and glory to You, to Your Son and to the Holy Spirit. We ask all these things in the name of the One that gives us peace at all times and in every way, Jesus Christ.