SCRIPTURE: “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23-24 ESV)
QUOTE: “When you delight yourself in the Lord, His Word and His ways become the focus and foundation of your life.” -Elizabeth George
NOTE:
The books of 1 and 2 John clearly explain that obedience to God demonstrates love for God. Loving God implies following his commands: By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. (1 John 5:2–3, ESV) Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning. (2 John 6, NLT)
ILLUSTRATION:
There is nothing—no circumstance, no trouble, no testing—that can ever touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret—for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is—That is the rest of victory. Realize that God uses the fires of life to purify your faith, to shape you into Christ’s image, and to cause you to love Him…even more!
REFLECTION:
Like Job can you say, “though He slay me, yet will I trust (love) Him?
TWO YEAR BIBLE READING: Catch-Up, Psalm 142