Saturday, January 30, 2010

A Devotion for You and Your Family

After finding out for sure that we have no church, Kat thought that it would be a great idea to share a devotion together. When I contacted Pastor Tonya about church being cancelled, she suggested that we encourage families to have their own family devotion. So I thought that it might be a good idea to share a devotion with everyone so that it might be like we are having church together on Sunday even though we can not be together in worship.

Many churches follow the lectionary, which is a pre-selected collection of scriptural readings from the Bible that can be used for worship or study. The lectionary has 4 verses for each Sunday from different sections of the Bible: Gospel, Old Testament, New Testament, or Psalm. The verse that I have chosen today is the New Testament selection, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. As you read these verses, may God whisper his Truth to you and may the words themselves allow you to connect with God in a more intimate way.

Transformational love is a love that can only happen when we have Christ as our Lord and Savior. We can love many things from favorite foods, to old comfy jeans, to our pets, but we must learn how to be transformed by God’s love so that we can share that love with our neighbors. May we learn how to love in the same manner that Charles Spurgeon suggests:

"I would, my brothers and sisters, that we could all imitate the pearl oyster. A hurtful particle intrudes itself into its shell, and this vexes and grieves it. It cannot eject the evil, and what does it do but cover it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by which it turns the intruder into a pearl. Oh, that we could do so with the provocations we receive from our fellow Christians, so that pearls of patience, gentleness, long-suffering, and forgiveness might be bred within us by that which has harmed us."

In this quote by Spurgeon, not only is the Oyster changed by the dirt but the dirt is transformed as well. This is the type of transformation that can occur when we share the Love of God. Not only will we be changed but we will change the dirt around us. I have heard it said that it is easy to love those who love you. I agree. But God calls us to love all. God says to love everyone from that annoying family member that has never been nice to you, to the homeless man that smells and talks to himself, to the friend that wronged you. God calls us to be an ambassador of his love. God wants us to impact our world for him.

So as you read through the verses of 1 Corinthians 13, may you see the Love that God wants us all to have. May you understand love from God. May you understand a self-sacrificing love that God not only talks about but demonstrated by both giving his Son to die for us and also by the life that Jesus lived here on Earth. May you not be held down by the dirt that enters in your life, but allow God to change both the dirt and you for the better.

May you have a morning filled with the Love of God as you read these words.

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