Devotions

Religious people have a tendency to focus on the darkness rather than the light. I hear so many Christians spouting bitter words: “The culture is to blame,” or “The government is at fault,” or “That special interest group is a negative influence.” If you walk as Jesus did, you won’t curse the darkness because you are focused on the light you bring. Let me illustrate.

Imagine sitting in a church service when the lights suddenly go out and the entire place is plunged into total darkness. If a maintenance worker turns on just one small light in that room, it is immediately seen by everyone in the congregation, no matter where it’s placed. Friend, that is a picture of you in a totally darkened world. No matter how vast the dark space may be, your light can be seen by everyone in the vicinity. It cannot be hidden, so let it shine! Then there is no need to be caught up in anguished conversations about our culture.

This kind of walk not only moves you out of religious mode but transports you into the love of Jesus. That never happens as a result of religious performance. As John reminds us, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

If we try to accomplish the work of God in our own strength, apart from his love, there won’t be any power behind it. Paul points out, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

By contrast, Christ’s love gives us a pulpit everywhere, with the everlasting power of heaven behind it: “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect [love] comes, the partial will pass away” (13:8-10).

In the third chapter of Acts, after Peter and John had healed a crippled beggar at the gate leading into the temple, a number of onlookers stood in amazement at the sight. They had known the man for years, and the healing was undeniable. When the people questioned the disciples about it, Peter said to them, “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we have made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus” (3:12-13).

When God decides to display his power in the presence of unbelievers, he does it for a reason. The intent is to glorify Jesus, to draw people to himself, to give us a small glimpse of what heaven is going to be like. He wants to demonstrate the amazing possibilities that lie ahead for those who choose to serve him. He’s displaying his complete and encompassing authority over the natural world and when he chooses to do that, it isn’t our place to question or manipulate the situation. We are to accept it and give him the recognition and praise he deserves.

Sadly, I’ve found more resistance to God’s supernatural power from within the body of Christ than from outside of it. Many believers are skeptical because they have not seen God working such miracles in their own lives and they doubt that he does so in the lives of others.

This used to worry me a lot, but now I choose to just push forward, to continue ministering and preaching and moving in God’s Spirit. If others seek God’s power and Spirit, he will reveal it to them.

Purpose in your heart that you will not miss out on the joy and power that Christ can bring into your life. Open up and accept it!

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.

The love of God is conveyed to us only through Jesus Christ. According to John, all of God's love dwells in Jesus: "Of His fullness we have all we received" (John 1:16). You may ask, "What's so important about knowing that God's love is conveyed to us through Christ? How does this affect our everyday lives?"

This knowledge is more than just a biblical concept. Knowing that God's love is conveyed to us through Jesus has everything to do with how we keep ourselves in his love. You see, it's not enough for me to know that God will always love me and won't stop loving me through all my struggles. He also wants his love to have a certain effect on me.

So, how exactly does God's love impact our lives? We can't look to man's example. There are licentious Christians who would turn the revelation of God's love into a license to sin. They convince themselves, "God loves me unconditionally. He has to keep loving me in spite of all my drinking, adultery and pleasure-seeking. His grace is greater than my sins." Such people do despite to God's love.

We have to look to Christ as our example. Jesus has already told us the Father loves us in the same way he loved the Son. So, what impact did the Father's love have on Jesus? The fruit of the Father's love was in Jesus presenting his body as a living sacrifice for others.

John writes, "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us" (1 John 3:16). Here was the fruit of God's love in Jesus. He gave himself as a sacrifice for others. The second half of this verse tells us the purpose of God's love in our own lives. It reads, "And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (3:16). God's love leads us also to present our bodies as living sacrifices.

When will God stop loving you? He'll stop only if he stops loving his own Son, which is impossible. Christ says, "The Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (John 13:1). This helps us to better understand what Jude is saying when he instructs, "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude verse 21). He is telling us, "Keep this truth. Lay hold of it and never let it go. The knowledge of God's love is meant for your comfort, your strength. It will set you free and keep you free."

To keep yourself in the love of God is to know, believe and keep trusting in his love even in your struggles.

John tells us how we can keep ourselves in God's love: "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he who dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16, KJV). In short, if we "dwell in God's love," we will keep ourselves in his love.

The word "dwell" here means "to stay in a state of expectancy." In short, God wants us to expect his love to be renewed to us every day. We're to live daily in the knowledge that God has always loved us and will always love us.

He is telling us in these passages, "No matter what trial you face, you must never doubt my love for you. If you are actively trusting in my love, then you're living the way I want you to live."

Are you enduring some great temptation? Have you been overcome by some old lust you hate? Is your marriage in turmoil, your family in chaos? These are the times you need most to keep yourself in the love of God. You have to know that, through it all, the eternal Father still deeply loves you. 

According to Jesus, in the Father's eyes Christ and his Church are one. Paul illustrates this with the analogy of a human body. He says Christ is the head, and we are his body – bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. "[God] put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:22-23). "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" (Ephesians 5:30).

Do you see the implication here? When the Father loved Jesus in eternity, he loved us, too. Indeed, when man was but a thought in God's eternal mind, the Lord was already numbering our parts and planning our redemption.

"Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Ephesians 1:4).

God has always loved both his Son and us. His love is as everlasting as he is: "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3). "Our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation" (2 Thessalonians 2:16).

Nobody can gain God's love by any godly thing he or she does. Jesus didn't earn his Father's love by going to the cross, or by his obedience, or by loving his Father. Likewise, God didn't start loving you the day you repented and received Christ. He didn't suddenly love you once you began to obey his Word and walk in the Spirit. You were already loved from eternity.

How long has God loved you? He has loved you since he has existed, because God is love. It is his very nature. He loved you as a sinner. He loved you in the womb. He loved you before the world began. There was no beginning to God's love for you, and there is no end to it.