365 Days of Glory

Day 171

“For we know how dearly God loves us,
because He has given us the Holy Spirit
to fill our hearts with His love”
Romans 5:5

Paul prayed that, “you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is” [Ephesians 3:18]. He prayed this because we deeply need to know that love God has for us. It is that love that sought us, called us and brought us home to Him.

God’s love is so powerful that it overcame us. We did not love Him. He first loved us. And then He put that love in us to love Him! Incredible! He saves our wretched being and then enables us to love Him. This is the glory of our God – He brought into existence what didn’t exist before.

Now we are filled with His love to love Him. And not just Him, but all men. We can pour His love out to others as He did to us because love conquers in the end. It covers a multitude of sins. There is no excuse for us not to do this. It is His love and He has given it to us through the Holy Spirit who will empower us to love. It is a choice we make – to love in His strength. And when you pour out His love He will fill you in a way that there is no end of love. And this is the glory of God – to love Him and all men.

“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each
other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you”
1 Thessalonians 3:12

Day 150

“I have loved you even as the Father
has loved Me. Remain in my love”
John 15:9

There are no adequate words or narrative that can express the Father’s love for His Son. The depth of it is beyond us. What we do know is that His love is perfect and of such magnitude that He was willing to permit His Son to suffer and die on our behalf. We probably will never grasp the full significance of this love until we meet our Father.

It is this sacred night that Jesus expresses His love again. He, with His Father and the Holy Spirit in eternity has chosen us. Before the foundation of the world He knew us. This particular night, Jesus has spent three years ministering and knowing those He called. His love for them and us is that same love His Father gave Him – a perfect, pure, wholehearted, deep, personal, faithful and enduring love that abides in us. And when He completed His ministry on earth, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us as a seal of that love.

This great love with which He loves us is a relationship love of friendship and companionship. It is what He seeks in us – to be His friend as He is a Friend to us. He first loved us enabling us to love Him. Our relationship rests on His deep, tender and abiding love to us. We need to move beyond form and consider our created purpose – to be God’s friend.

“And because they love Me, my Father will
love them, and I will love them”
John 14:21

Day 136

“Love rejoices in the truth”
1 Corinthians 13:6

God and His love never fails. If there is any one truth we can be absolutely certain about, it is that God will not and cannot fail in His faithfulness and love for us. All of God’s actions are out of and founded on His own infallible nature. He cannot do anything against Himself. This has significant meaning to us.

God has set His love on us. We are objects of His mercy. We have become His children and we are under His care. And because we are His precious children, He exerts great love and care towards us in a way that will not fail. He will bring the best out of us. Regardless of our flesh, failings, and sin, God will turn us and bring it to good. In spite of our attitudes, emotions, not taking counsel with him, and permitting ourselves to be in the earth, He will draw us out with His love, grace and mercy. He will lift us up on high and bring forth that eternal destination He put within us.

God delights in us. He finds joy in His labor of love toward us. He gave up His Son’s life for us so we would be His. He will mold us in His ways. Paul declared that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” [Philippians 1:6]. Yes, He is working in you right now to bring you onto glory.

“Those He justified, He also glorified”
Romans 8:30

Day 133

“I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me!”
Song of Solomon 7:10

Understanding Christ’s love for us and the church is not always easy for us. We are imperfect and very self-centered in our ways. It makes it hard for us to grasp the depth of sacrificial love. The marriage union, ordained by God for us, is a reflection of that. If a husband and wife live in the highest order of love, they will be completely fulfilled. This is a love that is fully given to each other based on Christ’s love for us.

Our Father wants us to understand that love. He wants to set love in right order within us. We often are filled with self-love, a one-sided love with the emphasis on me and what’s mine. There is possessiveness to this love. The bride in Song of Solomon shows this when she says, “My beloved is mine and I am his” [2:16]. The Bridegroom withdrew from her because of this and it brought a change – a purification of her love.

The next time she speaks, she says, I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” [6:3]. Her emphasis changed from ‘my’ to ‘I’ indicating a different understanding. Yet, there was still mixture and even though she was more conscious of Him as a Giver than of His gifts, and what she could be to Him, there still was a selfishness. But, she stood the test of love and it brought her to a higher order, a right order where she said, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me” [7:10]. It’s the love we need to walk in – a living love to others, always giving of itself.

“Love seeketh not her own”
1 Corinthians 13:5