{"id":650,"date":"2017-10-29T07:35:13","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T15:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=650"},"modified":"2017-10-29T07:35:13","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T15:35:13","slug":"devotion-john-1334-what-love-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Devotion\u00a0\u00a0 John 13:34\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What Love Looks Like"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 13:34<\/strong> – A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.<\/span><\/p>\n

1 John 4:12<\/strong> – 12\u00a0No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and\u00a0his love is perfected in us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the best and deepest ways God has touched me is through the young.\u00a0 I remember a time when my eldest son was about five or six.\u00a0 He was being home schooled and was such a sweet and innocent boy.\u00a0 Because of his gentle heart, as my father had taught me when I was about four years old, when he was very young I taught my son how to defend himself.\u00a0 He knew enough to be way beyond most others his age.\u00a0 One day, looking out a window, I was watching him play with a next-door neighbor friend.\u00a0 A couple neighbor boys, who had come from a rough neighborhood, joined them.\u00a0 At one point, by son accidently backed into the bike of a neighbor boy and it fell to the grass.\u00a0 The bike was not damaged in any way.\u00a0 As my son was apologizing and bending over to pick up the bike, the older brother was goading the younger brother to fight my son.\u00a0 My son then stood up in time to defend himself.\u00a0 The boy threw several punches at my son who blocked all of them.\u00a0 And then, instead of punching the boy, he just pushed him away.\u00a0 He was telling the boy that he was sorry for accidentally knocking the bike over.\u00a0 The boy came back at him several times trying to hit him.\u00a0 Each time my son blocked the punches and pushed the boy away.\u00a0 My son never tried to strike his attacker.\u00a0 Finally it appeared that the boy had given up his assault.\u00a0 My son then turned to speak with another boy and then the boy came up from behind him and sucker punched my son on the nose.\u00a0 It obviously hurt.\u00a0 I was angry as I watched from the house.\u00a0 I thought surely my son would turn and teach this boy a lesson.\u00a0 Instead, my son grabbed his nose, and while the older brother and the boy were taunting my son he just looked at them and wondered at this attack.\u00a0 My son then grabbed his bike, and without responding to the taunts, came home.<\/p>\n

After he had come inside I sat my son down and told him I had seen what had happened. I told him that I love his good heart, but in some situations, like the one he was just in, sometimes he will have to defend himself.\u00a0 My son responded that he did not want to hurt anyone.\u00a0 I told him that was a good thing from his kind heart, but if he did not defend himself in such cases, sometimes he was going to get hurt.\u00a0 He said to me \u201cDaddy, I would rather be hurt than hurt anyone.\u201d\u00a0 I knew then that God had gifted my son with a heart better than mine own.\u00a0 I was so thankful, and so proud.\u00a0 I prayed that I would one day have such a heart as grand as my son had.<\/p>\n

Kindness, grace, love and mercy come not from obeying rules, but from the heart.\u00a0 From a heart that is given to Jesus.\u00a0 Living under law is bondage.\u00a0 Living from the heart is freedom.\u00a0 Praise God who makes hearts to be like His!\u00a0 More of Jesus from born again, made again, servants of Christ.\u00a0 And the world, will be a better place.<\/p>\n

This last Friday, on the 27th<\/sup>, I was working at the Harvest Festival at our church.\u00a0 A son of a sister from our Friday night bible group came to me and gave me a Starbucks gift card.\u00a0 I was puzzled by the gesture.\u00a0 I was told that he won the gift card at an event that I had help sponsor him.\u00a0 He said He wanted me to have the card.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 I was so honored, but mostly so amazed at his heart.\u00a0 It really was a wonderful blessing to cap a long day.\u00a0 I thanked God for using this boy to bless me in such an unexpected way.\u00a0 I saw in him the wonderful heart of his mother.\u00a0 How blessed I was to see how he had been blessed and then had let the blessing flow from God, to him, to me.<\/p>\n

The next morning I met with a brother to share the Word together.\u00a0 We met, as we usually do, at Starbucks.\u00a0 I used the card that was given to me to bless the brother I was meeting with.\u00a0 I thanked God for the opportunity to pass on a blessing that I had received.\u00a0 Jesus said that all law, and all prophecy, is fulfilled in love (Matthew 22:40<\/strong>). As we receive God\u2019s love, thank Him for it, and then pass it on to others, we have done what God has called us to do. It is intended that we mature to love not from obeying laws, but from a heart that He is continually being made to be like God\u2019s own heart.\u00a0 The love of God that starts with God, is given to us, that we are thankful for and pass on to others, is then received by the others and they are thankful to God, and they also give it to others.\u00a0 The cycle continues, the number of those who are blessed grows.\u00a0 God is glorified.\u00a0 His love is perfected.\u00a0 Great is the wisdom and mystery of God!\u00a0 Simple is how He has called us to live!\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0 Oh Family, praise God!<\/p>\n

Kindness, grace, love and mercy come not from obeying rules, but from the heart.\u00a0 From a heart that is given to Jesus.\u00a0 Living under law is bondage.\u00a0 Living from the heart is freedom.\u00a0 Praise God who makes hearts to be like His!\u00a0 More of Jesus from born again, made again, servants of Christ.\u00a0 And the world, will be a better place.<\/p>\n

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

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

Micah 6:8<\/strong>\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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John 13:34 – A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 1 John 4:12 – 12\u00a0No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and\u00a0his love is perfected in us. Some of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[43,100,1906,13,101,95,94,17],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-grace","tag-john","tag-kindness","tag-love","tag-matthew","tag-mercy","tag-micah","tag-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","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=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}