Our Compassionate Expression of God's Love

1 John 4:16

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

God is love.  His love is unconditional and without end.  His love for us is expressed explicitly through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.  His love for us is reinforced daily by the counsel of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Through His love, Almighty God gives us an unfailing hope for our future.  Let us not lose sight of the truth that our hope for our future is so much more than how we feel about our future or what the world tells us about our future.  Our hope rests upon a very special love gift from God.  Our hope is built upon the Good News of God for the world that He loves us so much that He gave us His Son so that we may have eternal life.

Through His love, Almighty God also gives us His Holy Spirit to stand by us, to give us the strength to bear all things that come against us and the spiritual maturity to endure all the tribulations that make up life on this earth.  His grace is poured out on us in this manner so that we may overcome the world.

Most importantly, Almighty God created a spot in our hearts so that we could receive His love and return it to Him.  He gave us the capacity to share His love with the world around us.  He gave us the Holy Spirit so that our love could be an endless spring.  When we are living in accordance with the Holy Spirit within us, we are capable of extraordinary service to those around us.  By returning our love to the Father through our service to those around us, we become living testimonies of His perfect love.

Let us become vessels of God's perfect love and forgiveness.  May the world know His love through our compassionate expression of the love He has given us.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us unconditionally.  We thank You that Your love flows to us endlessly.  Prepare our hearts, Lord, so that we may become vessels of Your perfect love.  Cleanse us, Lord, of anything in our hearts that would restrict the flow of Your love in our lives.  May we bear much fruit for Your kingdom through the spontaneous release of Your love to the world around us.  We pray, Father, that the world will be drawn to Your Son when they see Your love at work in us.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who delights in our steadfast love, Jesus Christ.