Biblical Love: Part 5 — A ‘Time With God’ Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. I trust your day is starting well, and we want to make it even better by taking some time with God and just reading the Bible, His Word to us, and saying, God, speak to me, shape my life by your perspective on life, because if one has the right perspective on life, it’s the one who created this world, who put me in it, and has designed my life, and I want to see life as you see it.

When we come to God with that kind of learner’s attitude, listening attitude, not coming with a talking attitude, God, I want to tell you this, I want to tell you that, and I want this and I want that, but God, I’m listening. What do you have to say to me today? Then God gets involved in our lives, and our lives are so much better for it. We’re talking this week about biblical love and how God’s love for us needs to become the foundation of our life.

It needs to become the fountain that fills up all of our love needs so that we are then able to be loving people in the lives of the people around us.

You know those kind of people. They’re the kind of people you love to be around. They’re not focused on themselves. When you’re around them, you don’t feel like they’re just trying to get something out of their relationship with you and meet some need they have, but they’re truly giving into your life.

Isn’t that the kind of person you want to be? Well, the best way to being that kind of a person is to be a person whose own love needs are already met.

And truly God has made us so that we need His love in our lives, as one of the church fathers put it, You have made us for Yourself, God, and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in you.

Well, we have that restlessness. We have that sense that we need something more, don’t we?

And so often, rather than looking for it in God’s love, we go chasing after all these other things. Someone has pictured it as if we’re climbing up a ladder, right? Whether it’s the ladder of corporate success or of wealth or whatever. The problem is that for so many people, they spend all their lives climbing this ladder and they get to the top and they find out their ladder was against the wrong building.

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They’ve been focused on the wrong thing in life, thinking that it would bring them the satisfaction. There’s people who finally make it as movie stars, and then they say, well, what else is there? My life’s still empty. Or they make it as, as sporting heroes or heroes of business, and what they thought would come to their inner life from that success just doesn’t come.

Listen to what Jesus tells us here in Matthew chapter 6 in the Bible starting in verse 19. He says:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Don’t build your sense of security in life in material things or in your social status or in being popular or getting as much physical pleasure as you can. You just think about the perspective that age will bring you.

You ever been with someone on their deathbed when they’re dying?

Did you ever hear someone who was dying say – I wish I’d made more money in life or I wish I’d been more successful in business or I wish I’d been more into pornography. You never hear that from someone who is on their deathbed because suddenly they realise those are not the things that matter in life. They’re not the important things.

What matters is what is eternal, my relationship with God. My love for other people.

So today think about how you can refocus what you’re putting your energy into in life. I encourage you to put a little more energy into pursuing your relationship with God and the things that really matter and will last forever.

I’m John North.

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