The Lord's Great Love

August 5

Nehemiah 8-9

Psalm 89:1-7

Proverbs 19:24-25

I Corinthians 14:1-25

The Lord’s Great Love

“I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make Your faithfulness known through all generations.  I will declare that Your love stands firm forever, that You have established your faithfulness in heaven itself…The heavens praise Your wonders, Lord, Your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.  For who in the skies above can compare with the Lord?  Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings?  In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; He is more awesome than all who surround Him.”  Psalm 89:1-2, 5-7  NIV

Yesterday we looked at love and discussed the importance of demonstrating love to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is fitting that we examine the source of that love.  In our human state, we are utterly incapable of loving in the way Paul described in I Corinthians 12.  While we can show love to some people some of the time, ultimately we are selfish beings and we will fail if we are  attempting to love in our power and will no matter how good our intentions.  Thankfully, we don’t have to do it on our own.  We have the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us to love others.  Because He lives in our hearts we have the power of His perfect love enabling us to treat others in the way He would treat them.  Our Psalm today speaks of His great love and faithfulness.  We are able to love others because we have experienced His perfect, faithful love in our lives.  He has demonstrated His love and care for us so we can pass that love on to others. 

Yesterday we examined love.  Love is patient, kind, selfless and true.  When we look at how God shows His love to us we see that He is patient and longsuffering, putting up with far more than we deserve.  He treats us with kindness and gentleness.  He was willing to sacrifice His Son in order to bring us to Him.  And He is truth and goodness.  He is not easily angered and does not keep a record of our wrongs.  He is not arrogant or boastful in his interactions with us.  His love never fails.  The psalm goes on to ask the question, “Who is like our God?”  “Who can compare to Him?”  He is above all and beyond all powers and dominions in this world and in the heavenly realm.  We serve an all-powerful, all-knowing God who created the universe and sustains it with His mighty hand, but our God is also loving, merciful and gentle.  He could force us to obey Him as slaves, but He chooses to treat us as His beloved children.  Because of His love for us, we can love others.  If we are having difficulty loving someone, the best thing we can do is pray for them and ask God to help us love them as He does.  It is very difficult to have bad feelings for someone we are praying for.  When we regularly talk to God about them, He replaces any negative feelings we may have for them with His love and we are able to see them from a different perspective.  His love overflows from us in ways we can’t even fully understand.