Weekly Overview:
It’s vital to the Christian life that we as sons and daughters of the most high God allow our affections to be stirred by the loving, powerful nature of our heavenly Father. Too often we feel that God is distant or separated from us. Too often we allow misconceptions or lies to place a rift between us and experiencing God. It’s in reminding ourselves of God’s character that lies are broken and a pathway is laid for us to encounter his tangible love. Open your heart and mind and receive fresh revelation of the goodness of God this week. Allow your affections to be stirred and your heart to be filled with desire to seek the face of your heavenly Father.
Scripture:
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
Worship:
Love Came Down by Bethel Music featuring Brian and Jenn Johnson
Devotional:
You need to experience the love of God. The single most important part of your day is receiving the love of your heavenly Father. Without being loved by God, you can’t fully love him or others. And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:1, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” You’re called to live your life in response to God’s love, because God asks that everything you do be done in love. If what you are doing isn’t done in love, it is not pleasing to him, and you can’t live a lifestyle of loving others without being loved by him first.
What’s more, God’s desire is to completely overwhelm you with his love right now. He doesn’t want to love you just so you’ll love him back or love those around you. Loving God and others is a natural by-product of receiving God’s love. He loves you just because he loves you.
He longs for you to live a lifestyle of love because he knows that’s the absolute, most fulfilling, purposeful, and peaceful way of life for you. He longs to set you free from the burdens of living for your own gain. He longs to lead you to the path of abundant life. But it all starts with simply receiving his love.
The love of God will guide you, establish you, empower you, and fully delight you. His love will free you, compel you, and sustain you. His love for you is eternal, real, and right now. All you need to do is simply open your heart to him and set aside a little time right now to receive his amazing gift of love.
God desires to be experienced. He is living and active, but so few experience the life and love he wants to bring. Today, after receiving his love, take some time to reflect on how differently you feel and act afterwards. See if you feel a stirring of desire for God and those around you. You see, God intends for us to have his love for those around us. In loving God you receive his love for others. You care about the things the people you love care about. It is the same with God. But it all starts with simply being loved by him. There’s no better time than right now, wherever you are, to receive the love of your heavenly Father.
Guided Prayer:
1. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you encounter the love of God. Receive the peace, love, and comfort of God. Let all your cares go and take some time to just rest in his presence.
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
2. Ask God to give you revelation on his heart for you and those around you.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:9-12
3. Ask the Spirit to help you love the people you encounter today with God’s heart for them.
“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.” John 13:34
Extended Reading: John 17
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