Square one: God's love for you.
Our home church is doing a study on “community.” The main point in today’s reading was that in order to live out God’s commandment to love one another, we’ve got to start with His love for us.
I don’t know about you, but I often need to be reminded how much God loves me (and others), so I looked up some verses to help myself focus on that. Then I thought others might benefit from them too, so I’m sharing them here…
Isaiah 54:10
Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
Zeph. 3:17
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
Romans 5:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man… But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
1 John 3:1
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!...
1 John 4:10
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Ps. 103:8-14
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
Next entry: Some perspective on the back door.
Previous entry: Andrew Peterson in Augusta. (Kansas, that is.)