DAILY DEVOTIONAL – August 26, 2020
“Learning Love”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are how we know the love of God. Thank You Lord for Your perfect love toward God and for Your sacrificial love toward us on the cross. By Your Spirit, strengthen our faith so that we may love one another and bring glory to Your Name. Amen.
Scripture: Romans 12:9-17
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Devotional – “Learning Love”
As I try and teach every one of the couples I take through premarital counseling, “Love is something you learn together before you experience it together, and Christ is your teacher.” No matter how many times older married couples try and tell you and warn you whether directly or in jest, no newly married couple can foresee or anticipate the difficult realities of marriage that every couple encounters. For all of the wonderful blessings that marriage brings, the puppy-love of the honeymoon and first year of marriage will soon fade and the realities of the sacrifice and humility needed to enjoy everything about marriage God intended soon settle in. Case in point, I recently spoke with a couple that had been married for three weeks and had just returned from their European honeymoon vacation. I asked how everything was going so far, and I kid you not, this brand new bride said to me, “It’s going great! We only had one serious disagreement…and it wasn’t all that bad. I’m not sure why everyone says marriage is so hard.” So many things you want to say at that point, am I right? But I smiled and chuckled a bit, then made sure she still had my cell phone number in her phone. Ya know, just in case…
There is a French proverb that I think is very appropriate here. It says, “You need to not only want what you want, you need to want what your want leads to.” Real love, committed love, not only wants what it wants, it wants what that want leads to.
If we’re honest, even for those of us that have been married for much longer than 3 weeks, we know that none of us are capable of perfect commitment and perfect love. We confess that we have not only failed in our commitments to others, but we have done so first because we are all sinful and have failed in our commitment to love God above all else. As 1 John says, if we do not confess this, we only deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Love that fades when times get tough or when responsibility proves more challenging than we hoped for, is only fleeting puppy love. Love that fulfills its obligations no matter what the sacrifice, is real love.
Thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord, who lived a life of perfect faithfulness and love toward God and even toward his enemies. Jesus lived the life we were intended to live before God but could not and cannot. Jesus’ love is real love. True love. His love does not fade in the least when times get tough or even when his closest friends and family turned their back on Him. His love only grew deeper for you and for me as He gave up His own perfect life in our place and endured the wrath of God on the cross that we deserve in order to die our death and rise again to bring us grace and mercy and forgiveness and eternal life in Him.
Paul instructs us in verse 18 of our text for today, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” If we have any hope of peace and love and fulfilling relationships in our life, even with those who may not want to love us, it is found first in a relationship with the God of love, with our Lord and Savior Jesus who is the love of God given and sacrificed for us and so that we may know the love of God. As the Apostle John says in 1 John 4:19, “We love because He first loved us.”
May God bless all of you. Thanks for spending time with me, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
