LOVING GRACE
Col. 3:12-14 Since God chose you to
be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted
mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. You must make allowance
for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember the
Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the most important piece of
clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect
harmony. NLT
Hear what the Word is saying to us
today. Listen and understand it. God chose you in Christ because He loves you
and He chose you to be holy. Do you know for a fact today that God loves you?
How do you know it? What difference does it make for you to know it? Are you a
holy person? What is there about you that verifies that it is true what you
think about yourself?
Holiness is a life lived apart from sin, a life that strives to submit
to and obey the standards of God as revealed in His Word. Some of the
characteristics of holy living are found in today's verses. Take another look
at them. Do they describe who you are? You may not have it altogether, but you
should see some of them in you. How you treat others is a good barometer on how
you are doing. If you are growing into a holy person, you will have a
compassionate heart that treats people with kindness and love. Your first
response to others will be that of love. You will not let anything they do or
say keep you from loving them.
If you find it hard to love someone, you will flee to the Lord and ask Him
to love them through you. He will change your heart into a heart of love if you
will let Him. You cannot consistently pray for the good of someone without the
Lord giving you a heart of love for them. You cannot become who the Lord wants
you to be, and created you to be in Him, until you do.
Love is what binds us together and love can only be found at the foot of
the cross. Jesus takes away all that keeps us from loving each other and binds
us together in perfect harmony. When we don't get along it's because we haven't
lingered at Calvary long enough for it to impact our souls.
God commands us to be a holy people
characterized by loving grace towards others.
He treated us that way and demands that we pass it on to others.
No comments:
Post a Comment