Day 12 - Thursday - January 18 - God’s Work in Us -Our Relationships
Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8 (NLT)
Relationships are in crisis these days.
Relationships eroding - kids distancing from their parents, marriages ending.
If we're honest, we have been or maybe are in our lives too? What is missing in these relationships?
1 Peter 4 gives us the idea and the answer.
Could it be that the missing ingredient is love - but not eros love or phileto love - but the agape love (agopow - sacrificial, self giving love that is primarily concerned with the good of someone else).
As we pray for relationships, let think about this:
1. Know that Jesus Loves me.
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. John 15:9 (NKJV)
I’m so grateful for the simplistic love of Jesus.
Prayer: Thank you Jesus for loving me the way you do.
2. Let Jesus’ love be our standard.
Let’s lay down our own interests and seek what Jesus’ interest is for our relationships.
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. John 13:34 (NLT)
Let Jesus be our model for our love for one another.
Prayer: Forgive me for not loving the way you do. Today, I make you the standard.
3. Surrender to the Holy Spirit
We can’t do this on our own. We need the Holy Spirit.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17a (NIV)
When we surrender to the Holy Spirit, He produces fruit in our lives - love.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)
Prayer: I surrender to you Holy Spirit. Work in me so I can love like Jeus loves.
4. Love is what love does.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Cor. 13:4-7 (NLT)
Prayer: Help me to demonstrate love the way Jesus does!
Let’s all apply the missing ingredient - the agape - the extravagant love of Jesus.
