SPIRITUAL DIAY
Date: 12-03-04
My Worship Time Focus: God Loves Us
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: 1John 4:10-11
Message of the verse: “10 In this is love, not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another.” (NASB) “10 We see real love, not in the fact that we
loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to make personal atonement for
our sins. 11 If God loved us as much as that,
surely we, in our turn, should love each other!” (Philips)
A little
note from verse nine, seeing how it has been a long time since I wrote on that
portion of Scripture, and that is that God sent His Son into the world. This
supports the truth of the deity of Christ, for babies are born, and not sent
into the world as Christ was.
“In this is
love,” this has to be speaking about the cross of Christ, for on that cross God
demonstrated His love for sinners. It
was one then for God to have a love for lost sinners, however that would not
satisfy His righteousness, however by sending His Son to the earth so that He
could become sin for the world, God truly could satisfy His righteousness and
that is what propitiation is. It needs
also to be noted that man has never loved God on his own, as John writes in
verse 10, “not that we loved God.” It is
only through the prompting of God’s Spirit into our lives that He loves us that
we can even begin to love and want to please God. This is a process, and a discipline that
needs to be worked on each day of our lives.
Verse 11
speaks of the believer’s responsibility to one another by loving them because
of God’s great love for us. Jesus said
that the world would know that we know Him because of our love for one another,
for this is certainly not a natural thing for anyone to do.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I cannot conjure up love to love God or to
love my fellow believers, however I can rely upon God’s Spirit and the studying
of His Word to show me how great a love that God has for me and then rely upon
them to love others through me.
My Steps of Faith
Today: Trust the Lord to see me through this long
weekend, as I have many things to get done.
Trust the Lord to cause me to love others as He has loved me, and be a
light in a dark place.
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