We must open our hearts to God’s love. Because He has always loved us, He has shown that through the Plan of Salvation. This daily devotional reviews our response to that love.
Devotions in the Self-Discipline Review series
All year, we’ve been looking at self-discipline. We looked at self-discipline as the operational plan for self-control because it talked about improvement.
We are reviewing everything and hopefully putting all of the building blocks together. What I am doing is going through all of the devotions for the year and pulling out the nuggets.
I am formatting this as a glossary page. If I already have one, I will combine them later.
God’s priority is our spiritual salvation. Even before He created us, He loved us and wanted a relationship with us.
God Has Always Loved Us
- We know that God loves us first. He loved us before the foundation of the world, because that is when He devised the Plan of Salvation (Walking the Ways of Righteousness through Wisdom).
- God loves us so much that He designed a plan to restore our relationship with Him. Why was that necessary? (Comprehending Christ’s Love).
- Only God could — and would — love us enough to devise a plan where our sins could be forgiven (God Is the Only Peace for Man).
See Also
Plan of Salvation
If you have not admitted that your relationship is not right with God,
have not asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior,
and have not confessed your sins,
please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
God Shows Love through Salvation
- We were separated from Him. We were still sinners. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5: 8 NLT) (The Promises of Jesus’ Return).
- Even though we fell from His grace, God still loved us enough to design the Plan of Salvation. We just need to believe on Him to be grafted in again (Rom. 11: 23) (Is Election Really Mercy?).
- God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die a horrific death on the cross so His blood would be spilled. His blood became the sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins (God’s Judgment of Sin).
- Jesus loves us enough to save the worst of us — if we ask Him (A Steward Gone Bad).
- What took Jesus to the cross and held Him there was His everlasting love. He would complete the plan of salvation for us (Comprehending Christ’s Purpose Through His Love).
- But God is a God of love. He accepts us back — then told us to clean up our act. Bottom line — if we repent — He would restore us (What Happens When We Repent?).
See Also
Our Response to God’s Love
We may not be able to figure out everything about God, but we have to figure out enough to believe in Him. That means we have to have the correct views of God’s love (Comprehending the Plan of Salvation).
Even though God is a God of love, we continue to sin. That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with God. That means there is something wrong with mankind (What Happens When We Repent?).
We have to love good and despise evil (Good versus Evil).
The godless are those who do not love and reverence God. The unrighteous are those who break His laws and commandments (Can We Really Identify God’s Wrath?)
Our First Love
God expects us to love Him and do His Will. We want to do that in our first love. We should always want to do that (Have We Lost Our First Love?).
The problem was with church at Ephesus is that they had fallen out of love with Jesus (How Do We Lose Our First Love?).
While He gives them attaboys for what they did, He let them know in no uncertain terms that He was displeased. But really, Jesus could have come down a lot harder on them. Instead, we can see the love and grace behind the statement (How Do We Lose Our First Love?).
Why do we lose our first love? We can lose our first love gradually. We let the concerns and busyness of this life push in until that is where our focus is. Worse yet is when we actually choose something over God (How Do We Lose Our First Love?).
We could lose our first love when we stay milk babies. If we don’t grow into steak adult as we should, we could get discouraged and frustrated. We may also be unrealistic in what a relationship with God actually means (How Do We Lose Our First Love?).
Our hearts have to open to allow Jesus to take full residence within them. We lose our first love when we either don’t allow Him full control or we kick Him out after a while (How Do We Lose Our First Love?)
Why is it important that we haven’t lost our first love? Losing our love in our relationship with God is a huge problem. God does not want the honeymoon period of our relationships with Him to end. Remember, God wants us all in. He doesn’t want us lukewarm (Rev. 3: 16). He wants true devotion. Having a damaged relationship with God is going to steal our joy. It is going to open us up for correction (How Do We Lose Our First Love?).
Losing our first love for God shows that something is wrong with our heart (Have We Lost Our First Love?).
Love Based on the Commandments
Love is the greatest commandment. We are called to love God and love our neighbors. That will be how we will live through eternity (The Debt of Christian Love).
Christian perfection is achieving the two greatest commandments. We have to love God and others (What Does Sanctification Have to Do with Purity?).
Why did Jesus pick that one (and love your neighbor)? “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands” (Mt. 22: 40 CSB). It all boils down to love for God (What Is Obedience?).
If we don’t love God, we are not going to love God first and foremost, worship anything but Him, watch how we use His name, and find a community of people who believe like we do and meet with them regularly. If we don’t love people, we are going to not honor our parents, murder, steal, lie, and strongly desire what they have (God’s Law Creates Peace).
We are to love God with all our hearts — not a worldly love, but a godly love. We are to give God the top spot in our hearts and lives. He doesn’t want to share us with things of this world (Have We Lost Our First Love?).
The greatest commandment tells us — in some version — to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind (Deut. 6: 5; Mt. 22: 37; Mk. 12: 30; Lk. 10: 27). Heart is always mentioned first and is always mentioned (How Do Mature Disciples Control Our Dispositions?).
Being a disciple is all about love (The Ministry of Reconciliation).
If it is reverence and love, we have to have Someone to revere and love. It is abiding — long term, not short term (The Correlation between Fear of the Lord, Wisdom, and Obedience).
The Greatest Commandments give us a good order. We need to love God first. Then we love everyone equitably (Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity).
But love for God alone isn’t enough. We have to love each other. That is one of our job duties (The Perfection of the Church).
The second greatest commandment says we are to love our neighbors — that means everybody. We are to love them using God’s definition of love, not the world’s definition (A To Do List for Life).
Jesus calls us to a totally different way of life. This includes a different kind of love. Jesus’ love is different from the worldview’s love. The world’s love is predicated on tolerance, but Jesus’ love goes straight to the heart. World love says, “I’ll love you as long as …” but Jesus loved us enough to die on the cross for us. While the worldview wants to give the illusion that it is inclusive, but it isn’t; Jesus truly is inclusive. It seems that many world relationships do not last very long, but Jesus wants to spend eternity with us. People may not love as they say, but Jesus loves us with a pure love (The Ministry of Reconciliation).
Jesus paid too high of a price for us to isolate ourselves from others. We should, instead, do all we can to show His love to others (The Ministry of Reconciliation).
Our love for others should be genuine and heartfelt. It shouldn’t be an act or a delusion (Focus on Love, not Evil).
We should be honest, pure, and kind. He also said we should be cheerful, patient, and prayerful. If we follow these, we will love our neighbors, be humble, patient, and peaceable (Focus on Love, not Evil).
We are supposed to love, esteem, and respect others first. We don’t wait to see how they are going to treat us. We don’t change our treatment of others based on their treatment of us (Focus on Love, not Evil).
We will never pay off the debt of love (The Debt of Christian Love).
Notice that is says we are to love them as we do ourselves — not less, but not more either (The Debt of Christian Love).
The kicker is that we are to love them as we do ourselves. The problem is we don’t love ourselves. We see our faults, our failures, and the things we lack. We generally do not think we meet whatever standard we have set for ourselves (The Debt of Christian Love).
We’ve got to love sincerely and with all our hearts. It can’t be with an ulterior motive. It has to be genuine (The Debt of Christian Love).
Bottom line, we are commanded to love others. We do that by denying ourselves. We are patient with them (How Are We to be Inclusive in Our Worship?).
We were created — to serve God. God has commanded us to love each other, to support each other, to teach each other (How Are We to be Inclusive in Our Worship).
We have to love them enough to witness to them. We have to love them enough to withstand the rejection (What Would Non-Believers Do if They Knew Jesus Were Coming Tomorrow?).
We have to meet the needs of the person with whom we are interacting. We have to treat them with God’s love (Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity).
Our actions have to back up our words. If we say we are truthful, we have to be truthful. If we say we love our neighbors, we have to love the one that is different from us (Characteristics of Disciples’ Lives).
God doesn’t give us just one chance. He gives us multiple chances. He will forgive us when we don’t perform perfectly. That doesn’t give us license to not do the job description. We have to tell others about Him and make disciples. We have to love others His way (not according to the worldview) (When We Settle for Less than God’s Promises).
Accountability. Because we love God and want to obey Him, we are accountable to Him (The Correlation between Fear of the Lord, Wisdom, and Obedience).
Anger can be a sin when we violate the commandments to love others. We are to love one another (Jn. 13: 34; Rom. 13: 8; I Pet. 3: 8-9; I Pet. 4: 8; I Jn. 4: 12-13); love our neighbors as ourselves (Lev. 19: 18); love earnestly (I Jn. 3: 18; Eph. 4: 2-3) (What Are Moral Sins?).
See Also
Father. You are all about love, and You call us to be all about love. Many people today focus on the love others part without focusing on the love You part first. Help us to always make You the priority. Let us demonstrate that with how we love others. Amen.
What do you think?
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