Barry Parish Church

8th April 2019

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 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. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1 John 4:16-21

 

 

 

Prayer Points

 

Have you experienced God’s love in your life? Pray about this and thank him for his love for you.

 

Ask God for courage to demonstrate his way of doing life and loving people, even if it is against accepted norms.

 

Ask God for love to be (more) evident in your church.

 

         

     DAY 29 : LOVE

 

‘It is not so much a love that seeks value in its object, but the love that creates value.’ John Ortberg

 

Have you ever tried standing on your head or doing a handstand? It’s not easy being upside down. It’s unnatural. Jesus from the beginning of his ministry to its end came to embody and inaugurate the ‘upside down kingdom of grace’.

 

Yet when we look more closely, Jesus was really turning things the right way up. He demonstrated the right way to live. His teaching challenged accepted practice: bless those who persecute you; better to give than receive; love your enemies. His practice overturned social norms: friend of outcasts, prostitutes and Samaritans. The spiritual and social consequences were revolutionary.

 

Jesus was energised by one thing – God’s unrestricted love for the world. Every person on the face of the earth is loved and valued by God regardless of culture, creed or colour. That is what is so amazing about God’s grace; it is a love beyond reason: it is a love that positively seeks out the best for others regardless of emotion, feeling or inclination.

 

This love can be realised not just in relationships with individuals. It can also be practised in our approach to groups whose behaviour and attitudes may seem strange to us. In our increasingly polarised world Christians are called to resist the acceptance of false stereotypes. Muslim does not equal terrorist, refugee does not equal troublemaker and asylum seeker does not equal sponger.

 

The Lord’s call on us is to a life of unconditional love for others. Are we up for it?

 

 

Pray

 

*    Pray for your ‘big issue’

*    Pray for your ‘three friends’

*    Pray for a new wave of revival.

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