Lent Day 34.
Only one thought today.
Birthed out of one question…
…and one response.
It was a question I found written in my Bible.
I don’t know who challenged me with it.
I guess I forgot to write their name down.
Then, yesterday morning at church, I heard the exact same question, spoken by the pastor…
…with almost the exact same thought.
But, it was as convicting today as it was the day I first wrote it down.
Q: Do you want to know how much God truly loved you? (If yes, see response below.)
R: Go find the person in your world who is hardest to love. Then love them with everything you’ve got. Shower them with kindness, in spite of their response. Keep offering them forgiveness, even when they keep on hurting, wounding, beating, betraying, and threatening to crucify you. Continue to be patient, no matter how annoying they can be. Continue to speak gentle grace-filled words, seasoned with salt, no matter how angry, or ugly, or hateful they can be. Then, do this over and over and over and over again.
That’s how much God loves you.
To the impossible and back again.
1 John 4
God’s love and ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
