{"id":1681,"date":"2019-07-05T10:10:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=1681"},"modified":"2019-07-05T10:10:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T18:10:07","slug":"devotion-1-john-416-his-love-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=1681","title":{"rendered":"Devotion 1 John 4:16 His Love First"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 John 4:16\u00a0<\/b>\u2013\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0<\/sup><\/b>And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.\u00a0 God is love.\u00a0Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.<\/i><\/p>\n

Growing up I had heard the quote \u201cI never met a man I didn\u2019t like.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0When I heard it I thought that it was amazing.\u00a0\u00a0But I came to understand that liking a person does not mean that one approves of, or likes, everything about another.\u00a0\u00a0It means finding in a person something to like.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, it is likely that no-one likes absolutely everything about any person they have known for any prolonged period of time.\u00a0\u00a0We may accept and like a person completely, but if the truth be known, there is always something within a person that is not a good trait.\u00a0\u00a0Any remark that any person is \u201cperfect\u201d is spurious and ought not to be accepted.\u00a0\u00a0We are all flawed.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s who we are.\u00a0\u00a0Only Jesus was not flawed.\u00a0\u00a0Only Jesus was perfect.\u00a0\u00a0But the rest of us, even the very best of us, are all flawed.\u00a0\u00a0We can love the whole, but in truth, there are those parts!<\/p>\n

God loves us and He knows all our flaws even more than we do.\u00a0\u00a0Still He wholly loves us.\u00a0\u00a0Does He love the sinful parts of us?\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0But He loves us beyond understanding and for those who love His Son that love will never cease.\u00a0\u00a0Family, Jesus, God in the flesh, told us that in order to fulfill all the law from God it comes down to two commandments, to love God with all that we are and to love each other more than we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0In fact, through His Apostle Paul, Jesus has also told us to place the interest of others above our own interests (Philippians 2:3-8<\/b>), just as Jesus Himself did regarding all of us. Jesus subjected Himself to great pain, agony and suffering for our benefit, not for His own.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus thought of us before Himself.\u00a0\u00a0God thought of us before Himself.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If God the Father sent His very own Son to die for all of us, personally for each of us, then how surpassingly great is that love? \u201cFor God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son\u2026\u201d<\/i>\u00a0John 3:16<\/b>.\u00a0\u00a0Romans 8:32<\/b>\u00a0\u201cHe who did not spare His own Son, but\u00a0delivered Him up for us all\u2026<\/i>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0That is God\u2019s love.\u00a0\u00a0It is not love that needs to be conjured up but a love that is pre-existing within Him and so it pre-exists for us to be born into.\u00a0\u00a0It pre-exists us and when we are created it has been waiting for us infinitely from the past (Jeremiah 31:3, Romans 8:31-39<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0We ask ourselves how long has that been?\u00a0\u00a0Well whatever we come up with, it was longer than that.<\/p>\n

It is right and proper and God ordained to love each other.\u00a0\u00a0It is one way that the Lord uses us to bring His blessings to each other.\u00a0\u00a0Yet, the love that matters first and foremost is the love of God for us.\u00a0\u00a0It is what has saved us and what eternally keeps us saved.\u00a0\u00a0Of all the ways that we can and do bless each other, none of us can save another\u2019s eternal soul.\u00a0\u00a0Only God can do that.\u00a0\u00a0Only God has done that.\u00a0\u00a0So let us cling to God\u2019s love, let us cling to God.\u00a0\u00a0That is where peace and security are.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s love God before all as He has loved us before all.\u00a0\u00a0And let us love one another with the love that He pours onto, and into, us.\u00a0\u00a0Praise our God who loves us!\u00a0\u00a0Praise our God!<\/p>\n

Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n

Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 John 4:16\u00a0\u2013\u00a0\u00a0And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.\u00a0 God is love.\u00a0Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. Growing up I had heard the quote \u201cI never met a man I didn\u2019t like.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0When I heard it I thought that it was amazing.\u00a0\u00a0But I came to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[99,100,101,94,1871,17,10],"class_list":["post-1681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirations","tag-jeremiah","tag-john","tag-matthew","tag-micah","tag-philippians","tag-psalm","tag-romans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1682,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions\/1682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}