7 March, 2023
Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. – 1 Peter 4:8
Abba Father, you are the fount of love and mercy and knowing this, we revel in the promise of your love for all creation and for mankind in particular. Your love transcends all understanding, for our limited minds ensconced in sinfulness cannot comprehend love which has no measure and no boundaries. Your new covenant is a covenant of love. Our Lord Jesus lived in accordance with this new commandment which he handed to us, which professes the love of God, above all things and the love of neighbor as we love ourselves.
If we diligently and reverently follow your will dictated in this commandment, we will do to others and give to others as we would have them behave towards us. Father, we sincerely and humbly pray that, as Christians and followers of Christ, who enunciated this doctrine of love by serving sinners and the afflicted during his lifetime, shedding his blood to redeem and justify us before you and reconcile us with you, we too must love even our enemies and those who persecute us.
Love eliminates hatred, fear, jealousy, anger and binds people irrevocably. It wipes out offences in a manner that nothing else is capable of. Teach us to love, to encourage and to forgive without limit or condition, without dissimulation, in imitation of Jesus, for God is love and where love is, God is. With your grace we strive to emulate Jesus, and endeavor to become Christ-like, in his Name. Amen