The Love of God 4

John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

God’s love is exemplary.  John tells us in the next phrase “than this”.  He is sharing with us the example of God’s love in Jesus Christ.  He is telling us that it is exemplary.  That means that it is worthy of imitation and it is an illustration for us to follow.

Look at what Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:”  The love of God is our example and it compels us to do things.

What has love motivated you or I to do?  It might do us well to take an inventory and see if we have lost our love for what God has given us love for.

So, how are you doing?

We Must

Recently I had the pleasure of preaching at the mission as I do each fourth Friday of each month.  This month I was able to take my wife with me to play the piano and sing a couple of songs.  The men love to hear her play the piano and sing.  They are not alone on that one, for sure.

The chapel service was again unusual in a good way.  We did not see anyone trust Christ as their Saviour.  Most of the men came by and shook my hand after the service and thanked me for coming and for the message.  I heard in the distance as one man questioned my wife.  He asked, “Did your son help make the peanut butter cookies?”  My wife told him that our son had helped her make the cookies and had made the hash marks on the tops of them with a fork.  He told her to tell our son “thank you”.  That does something for a proud daddy like me.

I have assured these men that the only difference between them and me is that somewhere along the way they got caught and now they are living with the consequences of their decisions.  I do too.

After the service my wife asked if I had seen a post on social media that said the mission needed eggs.  I had not.  She looked at me as serious as she could and told me, “We have to do something.”  I told her that I did not know what we could do just us.  Well, you know what we did.  A close friend of ours gave us some money and we put some with it and we bought twenty-five (25) dozen eggs the next morning.  Instead of sleeping in we went shopping.  We took the eggs to the mission.  When we arrived I told the man in charge of the kitchen that we had twenty-five (25) dozen eggs he ran to our van with two other men with him to help us unload them.

As we left the mission that morning the tears of joy ran down my face like a river.  It felt good to help those men.  By the way, it takes twenty (20) dozen eggs for one breakfast there.  Even more than the warm feeling of helping these dear men was the feeling of pride that filled my heart and soul that my wife had such a burden to help those men and she made sure that it was done.  I thought about II Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:”  We tell these men each month that we love them.  This time we proved it.

So, how are you doing?