Devotional Life A Clean Slate for Love

Devotional Life

A Clean Slate for Love

#1 God Loves you, #2 We love God

A devotional life starts with seeing God’s love for us

And continues because we choose to love Him

You will stick with what you love

Always look at God’s Word as love letters to you

Look at His Word as a developing fulfillment of His love in your life

One last point to remember

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"

 declares the LORD.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9

Don’t let your thoughts get in the way of God’s thoughts

Jeremiah 29:11-14

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity.

A Clean Slate for Love

You have to love something to be devoted to it.

Loyalty comes from appreciation.

Love is a choice.

In 2008, I had to make a decision.

The losses in my life were draining

me, financially and spiritually.

When I was in Africa in 1979,

 I was abandoned and alone.

  

What was to be a powerful spiritual

experience turned out to be a complete failure.

But God saw the failure

much differently than I did.

God gave me a vision

of a sewing thimble.

 

 I saw Him pour me into that thimble

then put His finger in the thimble.

In 1979 and 2008,

 God had humbled me.

In both situations, God took me to

a place I never thought I would go.

A place where I asked, “Where is God?”

I was at a place where I was

seeking God all over again.

It was like He dumped out my

doctrine bag and said start over.

In 2008, the first thing I did in my

emptiness and darkness was to seek God.

I knew that the trees out my window

had to come from somewhere.

I have always been amazed at my hands.

How they have so many joints

and move in so many ways.

It seems my hands can move at

the exact time as my thoughts.

It was these simple things that

told me to seek the Creator.

  

Every time I have felt abandoned by

God or questioned His existence…

 It has been these amazing

things of creation that

caused me to seek Him.

In 2008, when I started to write

devotionals, I did it because I was empty.

It was like my garage.

I can never keep it organized.

 I am always working on projects

that cannot be completed and I am

always getting new projects and tools.

At some point everything

has to come out of the garage.

The floor swept and the walls painted.

Every items has to be evaluated

before it can come back into the garage.

Some items will not come back in…

Items I thought were very

important and I loved to own.

That is the way I restarted in 2008.

I don’t want a garage that is hard to work in.

I want a life that has everything

in place, clean and in order.

So I started in 2008 with scriptures

that told me of God’s love for me.

Scriptures that would give me hope,

God saw my life as meaningful.

It is interesting that my wife complains

about my garage before I do.

God complains about my life before I do.

I have to say there is something

wonderful about a clean slate…

Starting fresh.

God has taken me to that place many times.

It is like waking up in the morning and

going to the garage and finding it empty.

My first concern is what happened to my stuff.

Not only are my tools gone…

 But the projects I had hoped

to complete someday.

But then I realize the feeling

of standing in the emptiness.

I see the opportunity to

let God fill my life again.

I realize the first thing I need

and want is the love of God.

I want to love Him for who He is.

I want Him to be pleased with my life.

If you are going to have a devotional life

don’t start with adding God to all you have.

Focus on God’s love for you.

Remember 1 John 5:19…

We love because He first loved us.

A devotional life starts with seeing

God’s love for us and continues

because we choose to love Him.

You will stick with what you love.

Always look at God’s Word

as love letters to you.

Look at His Word as a developing

fulfillment of His love in your life.

One last point to remember…

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,"

 declares the LORD.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

Don’t let your thoughts get

in the way of God’s thoughts.

Jeremiah 29:11-14…

For I know the plans I have for you,"

declares the LORD,

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.

 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me,

and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

 I will be found by you," declares the LORD,

 "and will bring you back from captivity.

Scripture Reading

1 John 4:15-ff NIV

15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God ," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God , whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.