Wednesday 19 Jul 2017

July 19: 1 John 4:20-21

Key Verse: 1 John 4:20
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

Devotion:
Love and respect go hand in hand. Without respect, how can you love? Love is one of those words which means different things to different people, but respect is something that is common and most people agree on. How many people will admit to loving someone and yet show no respect for them? How many people will say they do love everyone and yet show no respect for some?

No matter how you want to define love, be it moral or intimate, you still must agree your love must be based on a respect for the person whom you say you love. When it comes to God, you cannot get away from a profound respect for Him. A respect because of His power, His Faithfulness, His justness, His love for us and especially for the way He allowed Jesus to die for us so we would know without a shadow of doubt that He loved us first! With that amount of respect, how can we not love God?

But when it comes to other people, we would say we don't know if we respect others because we do not know them. We would say because we have not met them, how can we respect them... We want to reserve our respect until we have had a chance to judge others – that is basically what it is boiling down to! But did you see God hold back on His love at any point in time to see how we turned out first? No, God made the first move. He laid down His life. He laid down His love first – without question!

We don't have the right to hate anyone in the light of what God has already shown to us. We don't have the right to reserve judgement on anyone. God has made us all. We are all His creation. We need to act like it before we do destroy each other – both near and far!

Points to Ponder:
How often do you treat people as if they don't exist?

What would you do if God treated you as if you did not exist?