16/06/2021
Ecclesiastes 2:26, NLT: "God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless--like chasing the wind."
Good morning! I hope you are doing well, thanks be to God.
MORNING DEVOTION,
YOU CAN LIVE IN THE KINGDOM OF LOVE
1 JOHN 4:8 GWN `The person who doesn't love doesn't know God, because God is love.
Wouldn't it be nice to live where everyone loved and was loved with a perfect love? A place where there was no selfishness, where everyone put the interests of others before their own interests.
The good news is that there is such a place! It is where Jesus is Lord. It is the Kingdom of God, which could also be called the Kingdom of love, because God is love. Everyone is invited. All are welcome. There is room for everyone.
There is just one problem. If you are allowed in -- while still a selfish being -- you would ruin it for others.
So you can't enter until you are changed, made right, made into a person of love, a person who is not selfish.
"But all humans are born selfish! We can't help it! It is who we are."
JOHN 3:3 GWN ``Jesus replied to Nicodemus, "I can guarantee this truth: No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."
Yes, humans are selfish. That explains why in order to enter the Kingdom of Love, you MUST be born of God and receive a new nature. John 1:12 tells us how we can be born again as God's child -- by receiving Jesus Christ.
ROMANS 5:5 GWN ``We're not ashamed to have this confidence, because God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
When we receive Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit instantly changes us on the inside and fills us with God's love. Then we must believe that God loves us, so we will not live in fear. Fear is the reason people are tempted to act selfishly.
1 JOHN 4:16 GWN ``We have known and believed that God loves us. God is love. Those who live in God's love live in God, and God lives in them.
People act selfishly because of fear. God's perfect love (which guarantees God's perfect and abundant provision), casts out fear (1 John 4:18).
REVELATION 1:5-6 GWN and from Jesus Christ, the witness, the trustworthy one, the first to come back to life, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. Glory and power forever and ever belong to the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and has made us a kingdom, priests for God his Father. Amen.
All sin is selfish. We sin only when we think it will benefit us. To be freed from our sins means we must be freed from selfishness.
Jesus died not only for the forgiveness of our sins, but also to set us free from them. That can only happen as God's love displaces the selfishness inside us. And that can only happen as we are born of God, filled with God, and trust in God's goodness and abundant provision for us.
SAY THIS: I choose to live forever in the God's Kingdom of Love.
