Episode 594

TODAY’S READING

13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.

14 Do everything in love.

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

We’ve been looking at the power of praise and how when we keep God at the forefront of everything when we thank him for absolutely everything. Life is just easier. It seems better because everything is with a purpose and for purpose. And you know that even in the tough seasons, we can give him all the praise because something is happening behind the scenes that we may not even know. And then beyond that, we talked about surrender yesterday and how we can give God the little moments of life, how it’s so important to allow him to be the one that helps us on an every single day basis. 

Today I want us to talk about love and the power that we get the opportunity to do everything in love. And this verse is especially important. It’s one of probably the more popular verses stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. What I like about this is that it’s a reminder that sometimes our faith may waver, and sometimes we may be shaken, but this verse is saying to be watchful and to stand firm, meaning Be watchful for the moments in life that may knock you off of your faith. Be watchful for different occurrences and different people that may make you question what you believe. Be watchful because the enemy doesn’t want you to stand firm in your faith. He knows your faith is the only thing that separates you from him. He knows that if you no longer have faith, it’s easy to have yours for him. But in your faith, you are more vigilant, you are stronger, and you are able to decipher what is good and what is bad. So let all that you do be done in love. What does that mean? That means that we have the ability and the power to stand in love day in and day out. We have the ability to look at our neighbors and extend the grace of God. 

We have the ability to look at our loved ones and continue to pray for them. We have the ability to look at the world around us and see it through the lens that God sees because He loves us. He loves us all, and he loves us equally. Our duty in this life is to be firm in our faith, to stand for what we believe, and to live a life that’s pleasing to God. And to do that, we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and to do that, we are to extend his love, and His grace and to share the testimony of our life being changed forever because of his love. So today, as we go about our day, let’s look for people we can love. Let’s look for opportunities to play worship music and praise God to surrender our life for more than anything to love on him and to love on those around us.

Prayer:

Father God, we thank you, Lord, that everything that you do is for a reason, Lord, and we think that you will love us so much. You love us that you sent your only son for us. Lord, You love us, and you will do anything to get our attention. You will do anything for us. You want what’s best for us, and Lord, you promise to give us the desires of our hearts because you’re a loving Father; Lord, we thank you for a personal relationship with you. We thank you for the ability to emulate your love to those around us, Lord, we look at our friends and our families, and we give you all the glory, Lord, all the glory. That we are able to look at them and their flaws and see them how you see them through the lens of love. And Lord, we look at this world as broken worlds, and we ask for strength, and we ask for your eyes, Lord so that we can continue to love on these people like you do. God, if there’s anything that we can do with this day, it is to emulate a life like Jesus. Let us be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world on this precious Thursday. We thank you, and we ask that you bless it. It is in your son’s mighty name that we pray. Amen.