Thursday 29 Mar 2012

Thursday Reading: Genesis 1:26-31

Key Verse: Genesis 1:27
27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Devotion:
How should we go about living a life that is full of love? Why should we? Because that is exactly what Jesus has told us that we should be doing – that we should be loving our partners, family, friends, neighbours and even our enemies! Why would Jesus expect such a high calling from us? Why should He expect us to love those people that hate us or abuse us? Because of the simple reason that He loved us first…

When God created us, it was not a random choice, a flick of the wrist to see what happened or any other random event. God specifically made us in His own image. In other words, we have been created so that we can love others – just the same way as God finds that love for everyone, we too should be able to find it. He loved us when we were sinners. He loved us before we knew Him. He loved us before we even realised anything. But when we do see the light and recognise that love, we then like to be able to return that love – that is all He is asking for; because love will accomplish an amazing amount of things in our lives.

When we look at how much God is willing to forgive in our lives, or even in the lives of others, then we begin to realise a bit more about this thing called love. If God is willing to forgive even more than we can imagine, then we can know with all our hearts that the love that He has for us goes far beyond any description we may have come up with for love. So let us not try to label love as one things or another but to embrace it as something that we will continue learning about each and every day that we live with Christ in our lives.

That then brings me toward thinking that there is another aspect of being in God’s image that we need to take care of and that is that we need Him in our lives at all times. In order to be able to continue identifying the things we should be doing in love we need to be able to identify what God would do in those circumstances; and that means keeping Him close at all times. The more we are able to live close to Him, the more we are able to live close to His ideals and to His standards. Yes we will always break the rules and fall flat on our faces – but that is just part of us being human and being sinners. God continues to lift us up and to bring us back to His side as long as we are willing to listen to Him and obey Him. What love the Father has for us!

Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are so different?

Are you living for God?