Jill Anderson continues the series ‘Committed’ on this Fathers Day on the ‘Heart of God, The Heart of Love’
Reading from 1 John 4 v 7 – 21
God has commanded throughout His word, that He is love. Everything revolves around love.
God adopts us as His own, we have His DNA.
God sacrificed Himself for us and everything about Jesus shows us the Father’s love.
If we are committed to God, we are committed to love.
God did not hold back, He gave His all.
‘Though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not.’ C.S. Lewis
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.“”
John 13:34-35 ESV
Scripture says we need to go into the world and make disciples, but we need to do it speaking in love to others. Sharing the Father’s love with others.
In today’s society we are afraid to show love, in case it is taken the wrong way.
But if we do not, who will?
Take up the Father’s love, to the fatherless, to the orphans, to the lonely.
Ask God to show you His love for our communities.
“If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing. And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value. Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten. Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial, but when love’s perfection arrives, the partial will fade away. When I was a child, I spoke about childish matters, for I saw things like a child and reasoned like a child. But the day came when I matured, and I set aside my childish ways. For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we will see face-to-face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood. Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love—yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 TPT
We cannot see God in all His divine essence, love is meant to be the way that God is seen both in ourselves and in the world. God’s love is meant to be the way that humanity ‘sees’ Him.
We pray that you will know the Father’s heart for yourself. Only by knowing and living in it, can you share it with others. That is the Father’s desire, that you would know and love Him.