“In His prayer, Jesus calls us not only to reach out to God for His forgiveness, but also to reach out to others and extend to them our own. That is the only ultimate way to conquer evil. Our willing sacrifice is required. Evil will be healed only through the love of individuals – that is, through you and me.”
David Jeremiah, Prayer: the great adventure, p. 152.
Daily Devotionals: Ascent’s Mission – Loving God, Loving People and Impacting Our World. Each day’s devotional will guide us through a scriptural thought based on the mission God has called us to follow.
We spent last week focusing on the first part of our mission, Loving God. We turn this week to the second part of our mission: Loving People.
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Engage the Word: Loving People
Read 1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us.
Connect the Heart
We recently spent more than two months in the book of 1 John and we know that loving one another is one of the primary themes of this book. Here in 1 John 3:23 is John’s irreducible minimum for Christian faith and experience. This verse provides both a summary of all his teaching and a fulcrum for the whole letter. The two central truths are here. The God who is light has revealed Himself in the unchanging truth of his Word, written in the Scriptures, incarnate in the Son. Here alone is ultimate reality. The response that He requires is belief. The Greek verb for “to believe” is in an aorist tense indicating a definite action at a specific point in time: “we believed.”. He calls us to allow His love to flow into and through our lives, so that we become channels of that love to others. The verb for “to love” is in a continuous present tense – meaning that love is the constantly expressed evidence of that commitment of faith.
Faith and love must go together.
Faith toward God and love toward others are two sides of the same coin.
The irreducible minimum for Christian faith and experience is believing in Jesus and loving one another.
Author David Jackman says this: “A true Christian, then, is one who obeys both the commands, to believe and to love. In this world, such responses will always be less than perfect and tainted with sin, but the continuance in them is the all-important mark of genuineness.”
Reflect on the Truth
- Knowing that faith and love are two sides of the same coin, think for a moment about how you are living out your faith in Jesus, and your love for others. Which would you consider is more of a challenge? Why?
- Jesus is a model for us. He loved the difficult, the unlovable, the broken, the outcast… He loved those most difficult to love. Think of one or two people you know of who are truly difficult to love. How might you show them the love of Christ in a way that displays where you place your faith?
Depend on the Spirit
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see the deeper longings, desires or motives in your heart that these thoughts are pointing to. (For example: you may write down, “Lord, my faith wavers at times, and I certainly find it difficult to love some people. Help me by your Spirit to grow in genuineness in both faith and love.”) The Lord can help us discern the path forward – through His word, His Spirit, His people.
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For Prayer
As you conclude your devotional time, pray that Ascent Church would be a Spirit-dependent church, on its knees in prayer before the Father.
Fasting
Please read the first blog post entitled “Why Fast?” This explains what fasting is and why we follow Jesus in this spiritual discipline as together we seek the heart of God.
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Some parts of our 21 Days devotionals are adapted using various resources on scripture and prayer like The Bible Exposition Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, The New Bible Commentary, Logos Bible Software and other resources.
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