From: "Phil Rembleski" <PHIl@rescuechurchofchrist.org>
To: "1111RESCUEMEMBERS"
Sent: Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 5:37 AM
Subject: 9-23-22 THOUGHTS
9-23-22 THOUGHTS
The reading below says more about love than almost any other section of scripture in the Bible. 1Cor 13:4-8a is a must also, and is so practical for our learning and application to life. LOVE is God’s WAY! The design of His system cries out LOVE! Verse 20 speaks of the seen and the UNSEEN. The tie between our professed love for God, and our practiced love for those about us, is inseparably made! God’s vision for His creation is one of love being practiced at every time and every place. It must make Him sad to see our behavior as mankind. May we pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” I think of Mark 14:36 as I say that... “And He was saying, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will." Love truly does “make the world go ‘round”, and when we frustrate this beautiful process, we end up being unhappy. We end up being wrong!
1John 4:7-21 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 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. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
My Prayer:
Lord, teach us to love. Lord, teach us to pray. Humble us in your sight, O God. Help us in each step of our living to remember that love does not seek its own. Help us. O Lord, to make this work in our marriages and in our families. May we pray this for each other. May we abound in love as your Church, O God. Draw us each, nearer to the cross and to Yourself. Help us to see life as You see it, O Lord. We pray ever in the name of The One who saves us, Amen.
pray for our sister Heather