Sunday, March 30, 2014

Love: Remain Current





Week 6
Day 1
Love: Remain Current

Love does not store up the memory of wrong it has received.  The word translated store up is an accountant’s word.  It is the word used for entering an item into a ledger so that it will not be forgotten.  That is precisely what so many people do.  One of the great arts in life is to learn what to not hold onto.  A writer tells how, in Polynesia, where the natives spend much of their time in fighting and feasting, it is customary for each man to keep some reminders of his hatred.  Articles are suspended from the roofs of their huts to keep alive the memory of their wrongs – real or imaginary.  In the same way many people nurse their wrath to keep it warm: they brood over their wrongs until it is impossible to forget them.  Christian love has learned the great lesson of not ledgering, or not hanging out for reminder, the wrong one has endured. 

How about you?  As we attempt to live out the different characteristics of love, it becomes evident to me it will take more than “me” to make them a reality in my life.  I Corinthians 5:17 states, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away, behold new things have come (NASB).  We are not being asked to live out the impossible.  God has given us the Holy Spirit to empower us to love as Jesus loved. 
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.                                                                                      Galatians 2:20


Questions for Reflection

What accounts are you keeping that you need to stop tallying?  With whom?  About what? 
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Reflect on Galatians 2:20 from the devotional.  How does the truth of this verse empower us to remain current rather than keep an account of wrongs suffered? 
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Prayer: Reflecting specifically on this devotional, write out a prayer to God. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________









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