“God is love.
Whoever lives in love lives in God,
and God in him”
(1 John 4:16)
Reflection:
Core Values in our lives – God, The Word, Prayer, Holy Living and, now, Love.
Love has to be the flame that burns within us, the source that feeds out spirits, minds, deeds and emotions. For God is Love – and if we are in His image then it should be love that characterises us as well. And so Scripture tells us that love is essential to us.
- “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
- “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5)
- “`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:
- “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39)
- “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44)
- “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34)
- “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14)
- “But the fruit of the Spirit is love..” (Galatians 5:22)
This love is not a product of our own efforts but comes from God and through God. It is a consequence of the love that He has for us and which He has revealed to us.
- “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19)
We may decide to love because we know that it is right – but it only becomes real and true, and not a legalism, when the love of God flows into us and through us. The greater our awareness of God’s love for us the more we are prepared and enabled to love those people and things that He loves. As we receive the fullness of His blessing for ourselves so it overflows from us – because love cannot be contained. So Paul’s prayer becomes ours as well;
- “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Five Core Values for which to pray and keep on praying – through the sunshine and the darkness – and which to allow the Holy Spirit to live out within us and through us as we trust and follow His guidance.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father as the moon reflects the light and the glory of the sun, so may I shine with Your love and truth in the darkness of the world around me – and may You be honoured and glorified in it all. Amen.
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Softly, Spoke the River 