Daily devotion – Thursday 5th August 2021
Gal 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love….
The Bible tell us that God is love…. 1Jo 4:8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s heart hungers after love. As you read the Old Testament prophets, from beginning to end their pleas to God’s people were filled with sighs of God’s love after the love of His people.
We often think of these prophets as men of thunder, yet we find them men of tears. Behind all the thunder was God’s heart disappointed because men did not love Him.
Hos 11:8 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
If you go right back to the beginning of the Bible, there in Genesis, we find God saying to Adam, “Where are you?” This is not the arresting voice of a police officer. It is the wailing voice of the Father Who has lost His child.
God is hungry for love. The fruit of the Spirit which is for the sustenance of God’s own heart in its hunger, is love.
We live in a world where the ills of all are prescribed as a lack of self-esteem. But the Bible would tell us a very different story.
We know the heart of the problem of our world, it is sin. But God did not leave us to rot in our sin. No, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to free us from our sin, to save us from our sin.
This He did fully by His death on the Cross at Calvary and His powerful resurrection from the dead three days later, exclaiming to the world He has paid the debt we all owed.
The problem we each have is therefore not a lack of self-esteem, but when one fails to realize the love that God the Father has for each of us that He gave His only begotten Son to save us.
Instead of low self-esteem, when one realizes that the God of Heaven, the Creator of the Universe, He whose character is Love – loves us, then we have a right perspective, a right understanding of who we are. That our lives have a very rich and wonderful purpose. For we are each made in the image of God, and He loves us!
When you know and realize that God loves you so much – when you have accepted His gift of grace and forgiveness, then your life is flooded with His character, the character of God which is Love!
Today, do you know that God loves you? Are you aware He desires a love relationship with you? Once you do, the fruit of the Spirit will begin to blossom in every area of your life and provide a blessing to all those around you.
Jhn 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.