READ YOUR RHAPSODY OF REALITIES DAILY DEVOTIONAL
GOD IS LOVE – PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME
WEDNESDAY, 19TH OCTOBER 2016
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love (1 John 4:7-8).
Love is the totality of God’s nature. This is beyond someone having love in his heart or the ability to love; it means that He’s love personified. God is love! And because He’s love, He doesn’t have the capacity to hate; it’s not possible for God to hate. Hate is of the darkness. God is light, and in Him, there’s no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). The Bible says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
Someone may reference Romans 9:13 and ask, But didn’t God say, “…Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated?” (Read Malachi 1:2-3). This is where understanding the place of poetry and prophecy, and the dichotomy of expression in the Scriptures come in. The language of the Prophets in the Old Testament shouldn’t always be interpreted at face value; you’d have to look through the words of other Prophets to interpret them. You’d also have to judge their communication in line with the revelation of God that we see in the New Testament, in the person of Jesus.
God is love. When the Holy Spirit reveals God to you and you get to know Him, His love will dominate you. This is because the more you love Him, the more like Him you become. As you meditate on His love for you, you’ll find yourself demonstrating that same love in your life.
You’re a product of love. Let the love of God in your spirit dominate you. It’s something you do. The Bible says for us not to love only in words, but in deeds as well (1 John 3:18). Be like God whose essence is love, because as He is, so are you in this world.
PRAYER
The love of God is expressed through me today; my communication, actions, and all that emanate from me are expressions of the love-nature of Christ that’s in my spirit. I’m the embodiment and expression of the love of Christ. Hallelujah!
FURTHER STUDY
John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
1-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
1 Timothy 1:1-20, Jeremiah 5-6
2-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
Hebrews 9:11-28, Ezekiel 17