23 August, 2022
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19
God, you are LOVE! Absolute, from everlasting to everlasting , perfect, unconditional, incomparable, pure, incomprehensible. And all creation is of your love. We are all born of this love. And your splendored love, ever existent, commands us to love you unceasingly, wholly, with all our minds, hearts, souls, strength. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. Lord, we are your chosen people and as Christians, who are born again, of the Spirit, as your children, we are set apart and identified by our love.
Jesus, in obedience of your Will, has taught us the meaning of true love, in serving our fellowmen with humility, and with compassion, without prejudice and without judgement. Father, you are the fountain of love, which emanates from you to us, and if we love as you do, it is because you are the source and origin of selfless love. Love, not just to our own, but also to our foes and persecutors.
Loving Father, nothing more animates and inflames our love , than the truth of the existence of your love for us, before ours, which shows that it is free, true, sovereign, and unmerited. Living in Christ, aspiring to work and obtain salvation by our faith and your free grace, we know that when we stand before you, it will be because we have lived in obedience to your Will, and have risen above pride, arrogance, ego, and have decreased ourselves in the purity of love, thereby increasing Christ, living in the counsel of the Spirit, in Christ. Amen
