Tuesday 30 Oct 2012

Tuesday Reading: 1 John 3:11-15

Key Verse: 1 John 3:12
12  Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

Devotion:
The message that God has tried to teach us from the beginning is that we need to love one another; something that Christ enforced and reminded us of as well. But when we see how the world has tried to re-define that love that God has taught, we then begin to understand how we have managed to get so far from God in so many things. God’s love is pure and whole whereas we try to define love in terms of what we can get out of it; God’s love is directed toward others.

Cain must have had love for his brother – that is something that we can relate to as well; and yet he got to such a stage that he turned against his brother and killed him. For that to happen there was a limit that he placed on that love, a boundary which was crossed in his mind. God does not have such boundaries and does not impose limits on His love for us. We place limits on relationships so that we do not have to go all the way or give everything when required; instead we want to only have to give as much as we think is enough.

If God had placed limits on His love He would not have gone to the cross for us knowing that we would sin against Him, but would have probably required something from us before going that far. Instead, Christ gave it all without expecting anything back. That is the level of commitment and love that He requires that we apply in our lives, that we are willing to love without expecting anything back. Once we can see that we can then begin to see how much He does actually love us and how easily we are led astray by the evil one and his ways.

When we start to show that we are willing to love without requiring anything in return we will find that people will not just think that we are strange, but may even try to stop us because we may just show them up for what they are. The men of Israel wanted Christ out of the way because He was showing them up for the wicked men they were. Once our feelings of pride and greed start to surface we find that we lose control of our own feelings pretty quickly and don’t see why others should be in control of theirs. God’s directive for us to love without fault was given to us so that we can aim for a fuller relationship with Him.

Points to Ponder:
Are you limiting your love?

Why try to limit God’s love?