Thursday 18 Oct 2012

Thursday Reading: Romans 12:9-16

Key Verse: Romans 12:9
9  Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

Devotion:
Have you ever thought about what the starting point should be when considering your relationship with others in God’s church? I think that this verse sums up what we need to start with, live with and finish with because it sums up so much that is missing or wrong in this world at the moment. People are just not showing that love in the way that it should be shown; people are too concerned with being correct or being seen to be good instead of actually being good.

No matter what we are able to do or to say, if we do these things without love then we are no better than a machine or an animal. That is the thing that separates us from the rest of the world, the fact that we can and do show love and we can show it without having to hide behind other things. If we give up that ability then we are once again nothing. Once we grasp that love and embrace it fully we are then able to take hold of more of what God would like us to do; or in other words we will be able to do more for Him than before.

The following verses show us just how we can and should be acting as Christians; we should be the example that others can look toward just as we look toward Christ as our example. By embracing that love we can rejoice in the hope that we have in Christ because we know that He has done this all because of the love that He first had for us. Just as He started this all with love, we must continue on in that same love.

But just because we have this love, depend on it, embrace it and even live by it, does not mean that we will have a life without trials and tribulation. We still live in a world that is full on sin and a world that is embracing evil instead of good. That means that we will still have many evil things that we will be faced with and many of those might have to be dealt with directly by us. But as long as we have God on our side we know that we face an eternal home with Him. That eternal home will be peaceful and will have no evil to corrupt it. That hope is what we can build our love upon and is what will charge us up when we do feel like evil is winning the fight. That hope is built on something small but incredible; love.

Points to Ponder:
What do you base your life on?

Are you upholding God’s love?