What would you do for love?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 2 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Unconditional Love” (LISTEN HERE).
Why is love such a big deal…let alone unconditional love?
In 1943, an American psychologist by the name of Abraham Maslow penned and article for the journal Psychology Review entitled, “A Theory of Human Motivation.” In this article he outline what has become known as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” The first level is physiological needs (things we need for physical life); the second level is safety needs (feeling secure). The third level hits on our topic: Belonging or love needs (need for relationships and friends).
His theory proposed that we are motivated to fill these needs and the more severe the need is, the more we will risk or do to have that need filled. For example, while your general activity would never steal from someone, if you were starving and didn’t have any money to buy something to eat, you may consider stealing some food to meet that need of your body.
Love is a big deal because God has wired us to be loved and to love. Maslow wasn’t inventing something new for the human being, he was simply putting to pen and paper what God has wired in us. From the beginning God designed humanity to be in loving relationship with him and with each other. Sin broke that, but did not remove the need to be loved.
People will do a lot to feel loved. Kids want their parents love. Young people may be in a relationship with someone simply because that person fills a love void. Gangs in the street, as violent as they can be, are a place where individuals feel belonging and love. Friendships form to meet this need. We play on sports team to find a peer group of love and acceptance. What would you do for love?
This question sets up a dangerous answer.
It implies that I must DO something to earn someone else’s love. It also implies that if I DON’T do the right things, I will lose that person’s love. This conditional arrangement leaves love hanging in the balance and this need to be loved often unfulfilled.
It also leads to our love for others hinging on the conditions we overtly or subconsciously place on it.
In preparing this week’s message, I am convinced what our soul yearns for is UNCONDITIONAL love. We want security in knowing that another’s love is NOT dependent on my performance. We want to know there is “nothing I can do that can make you love me more and nothing I can do that will make me love you less.” We want to know love is unconditional and constant.
To be honest, there are many thoughts floating around in my mind about unconditional love and I look forward to delving deeper into the topic and how unconditional love plays out in our own hearts and its impact as we live to love without conditions.
That being said, the key verse for this value of “Unconditional Love” begins the journey to understand the ONLY place where unconditional love can be found in perfection and the only place FROM which unconditional love can begin to be given to those around us. Unconditional love is grounded in the unconditional love of God.
1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
God chose to love us before we could ever love him. God showed his love for us in Jesus before we could ever show our love for him. God modeled unconditional love for us so we might show unconditional love to others.
Apply: Reflect on the love you receive and give. How is it conditional? How is unconditional?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the unconditional love you have shown to me in Jesus. Use me to show that unconditional love to others. AMEN.
Keep praying!
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 1 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Persistent Prayer” (LISTEN HERE).
18 years ago the prayers started. Perhaps not every day, but often. Prayers for her health. Prayers for her friends. Prayers for her faith. Prayers for her heart. Prayers for her well-being. Prayers for guidance. Prayers for the ability to guide her. Prayers for forgiveness for failures. Prayers for her future spouse. Prayers for safety. Prayers for success in school. Prayers for her to be a blessing to many. Prayers for…many things I’m not remembering.
Today marks our oldest daughter’s 18th birthday. I remember when a neighbor gave us a picture board that started with her birth picture and it felt like the picture that would fill the “18 Year” slot was so far away. I wondered as a parent about the journey ahead and overwhelmed by the responsibility to pour my love, heart, and parenting into another individual.
The Lord has answered many prayers along the way and many still continue. She is healthy, off to college, has a strong faith, good friends, and a mind and heart to be a blessing to others.
Lord, thank you for and happy birthday to our daughter!
We don’t always know the timing or the answer to our prayers, but we are encouraged Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16)
Never stop. The Lord never wearies of hearing our prayers. Admittedly as a parent, there are times when the requests of your children become wearisome. Now that our oldest is about to head out to college I am treasuring the times she still needs help, advice, direction or input. I hope that never changes.
I guess this is the heart of God. He wants to hear from us regularly and often.
As a parent, sometimes the request is so persistent that you give in just to stop the request from coming. “Yes! You can have ice cream. Just stop asking!” The persistence of the ask often turns into the ask being granted. We are encouraged to have this same persistence when we pray to the Lord. Jesus told a story to illustrate the point:
Luke 11:5 Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 “Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Verses 9-10 are a wonderful promise that will keep us praying continually and persistently. Ask, seek, knock…often…regularly.
I am grateful to the Lord for all the prayers he has answered over the last 18 years on behalf of our daughter…it is a small example of his faithfulness to hear and answer the prayers of his children.
Apply: How has the Lord been faithful to you? What prayers have you been “constantly” asking? How has the Lord answered?
Prayer: Lord thank you for the invitation and privilege to pray to you constantly. Thank you for not growing weary in listening, but always hearing the requests of your children and graciously answering for our benefit and blessing. AMEN.
PRAYER TIP:
Ever need a simple outline for prayer?
Consider the A.C.T.S. model:
A – Adoration – statements of praise for who God is and what he has done.
C – Confession – acknowledging sin and asking for God’s mercy.
T – Thanksgiving – prayers of gratitude
S – Supplication – praying for people and situations.
How do I pray in line with God’s Will?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 1 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Persistent Prayer” (LISTEN HERE).
1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
How do you know the will of God?
If God’s promise given here is true, “…that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” wouldn’t you want to always ask according to his will?
I would think so.
Knowing the will of God connects prayer with the Word of God. God’s Word forms the input into our hearts and our prayer life that aligns our requests with the known will of God. For example, when you put thoughts of Scripture into prayer, we can be sure that the Word of God IS the will of God, and as the word of God is a key component of our prayer, we can be confident we are praying the will of God.
For example, you may be reading 1 Timothy 2
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
You may follow it with a prayer:
Lord, I pray for our President and other leaders that they recognize their authority comes from you and that they would use that authority to allow us to live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. I also pray Lord for all who don’t know you that they would come to a knowledge of your truth and trust you as their God and Savior. Amen.
Is that prayer in line with God’s will? Yes, because it captures the words of God which communicate the will of God.
To be sure, not every prayer has a direct connection to Scripture. When we pray for physical healing, or tangible blessing, we may end our prayers with “Not my will, but yours be done.” This takes the demand out of our prayer and puts our trust that the will of God is always what is best for our lives.
We can have the same confidence as the hymn writer:
What God ordains is always good; His will abideth holy.
As He directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly.
God indeed in every need Doth well know how to shield me;
To Him, then, I will yield me.
To be a persistent pray’er is also to be a persistent Bible reader. Prayer and Bible reading close the loop of two-way communication. God talks to us and reveals his will in his Word; we respond and talk to God through our prayers.
So a great way to enhance your time of prayer and expand the things for which you pray is to read a section of Scripture and then “pray through it.” This will naturally incorporate the will of God in your prayers to God.
Apply: Try reading a Psalm and then after reading turn it into a prayer. What content did you find yourself praying about that you probably wouldn’t have if you didn’t read Scripture before praying?
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for giving me your Word to reveal your will to me. Encourage me to always let my prayers be flavored by your Word, thus aligning my prayers to your will. AMEN.
Nothing is too hard for the Lord! So ask.
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 1 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Persistent Prayer” (LISTEN HERE).
This might be one of my new favorite verses:
Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
What makes these opening words of Jeremiah’s prayer so powerful is the setting is prior to the people of Jerusalem being deported to Babylon for captivity. Jeremiah was given an opportunity to redeem a piece of property from his family’s estate. The “insider information” Jeremiah had was that the Babylonians were going to take the people captive.
Now if you knew an enemy nation was going to take over a piece of land, would you buy that piece of land?
I wouldn’t.
But Jeremiah did because he was confident the Lord would hold to his promise to return the exiles to Jerusalem.
Babylon was powerful. But God was more powerful.
Nothing is too hard for the Lord! Nothing. Period.
Jeremiah had this confidence because he knew the Lord created the earth to begin with. If he put everything and everyone on this earth, he certainly could guide and direct the affairs of the earth for the blessing of his people.
We can have the same confidence when we pray. Perhaps memorizing this verse and use it as an opening to your prayer would be a wonderful statement of praise and trust.
I am wondering if I am missing out on seeing the power of God because I don’t regularly put my confidence of prayer in the power of God?
What do I mean?
It’s not that I doubt the power of God, it’s that I forget to express that confidence as I pray to the Lord. I also miss out on seeing the power of the Lord, because I don’t remember all the things for which I pray.
So what might help?
Over the years, I have interacted with individuals who keep prayer journals. They write down regularly the situations and people for which they pray. Then they go back periodically and see how God has answered the prayer. What they have expressed is an amazing display of the power and grace of God to answer the prayers that were prayed.
I haven’t kept a prayer journal. But I’m thinking to be a persistent pray’er, one might be helpful.
The Lord would not let Jeremiah down. He will not let us down.
Here is what the Lord was going to do:
Jeremiah 32:37 I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. 38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
I don’t know if Jeremiah kept a prayer journal. I guess the Spirit did for him so that all people would know that the power of God is real and can be trusted.
Prayer connects us to the power of the Lord!
Apply: Do you reader have a favorite form or bound journal you use? Please share!
I don’t endorse any of these, but here are a few that I found searching…
https://dailykairos.com/products/daily-kairos-prayer-journal?variant=37004562268321
https://thedailygraceco.com/products/in-everything-journal
There are many options on Amazon.com as well…just search “prayer journals.”
Try a week of journaling your prayers. Record how the Lord answers them…or waits to answer them.
Prayer: Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. AMEN.
Other prayers: Looking for a few prayers to use regularly? Try Martin Luther’s morning and evening prayers:
Morning Prayer
In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say:
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:
I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.
Then go joyfully to your work, singing a hymn, like that of the Ten Commandments, or whatever your devotion may suggest.
Evening Prayer
In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say:
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Then kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:
I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.
Then go to sleep at once and in good cheer.
A Persistent Pray’er is a habitual pray’er!
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 1 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Persistent Prayer” (LISTEN HERE).
Is prayer a first resort or a last resort?
Is prayer regular or irregular?
Yes and no.
If I am honest with you about my prayer life, it is a first resort at times and at times a last resort. I go through seasons of regular prayer, but too often it is irregular.
So I have opportunity to grow in this area.
Daniel was a godly man of wisdom and prayer. In fact his habits were so predictable, it was the only way his detractors had a chance to get rid of him. His opponents got King Darius to sign a decree that for 30 days people could only worship or pray to the king. Any other prayers to any other gods would be punishable by time in the lions’ den.
Daniel’s response when he heard about this decree?
Daniel 6:10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
His prayer life didn’t change because of the decree. He continued his habit of praying to the Lord, and praying to him as a first resort, not a last.
What a great example of a persistent pray’er!
So how can we develop a habit of prayer? Here are a few suggestions:
Create a habit by setting a time or times for prayer.
Daniel had three times a day that he set aside for prayer. My guess is whether the day was busy or slow, he would take these times to connect with the Lord.
What times might you set aside?
Maybe start with one set time a day. Morning routines are beneficial to set the tone for your day. Evening routines bring closure to the day (but if you are like me, I often fall asleep if I wait until my head is on the pillow to pray!). Perhaps a midday break allows for time of reflection and prayer.
Build a habit of prayer by engaging a prayer partner.
Habits are built with partners. When I know someone is counting on me to show up, I am more likely to show up. How about choose a prayer partner with whom you connect every day. For some, that may be prayer time with your spouse. Maybe it is a family prayer time which has a scheduled time to come together. A phone call with a friend to connect and pray through your day can be beneficial.
Use your device to remind you of your prayer time.
Electronic devices can be a good way to set a reminder to pop up on your screen or watch and remind you to pray. Apple watch vibrates when it’s time to stand up, or get ready for bed, or when an appointment is coming up. Why not set daily reminders to remind you to pray? Try it and see how it works for you.
Prayer is not about “checking the box” to get it out of the way. Prayer is a privilege that the Lord desires us to enjoy and take advantage of. A habit of prayer ensures we are enjoying the blessing of prayer regularly in our lives!
Apply: Choose one of the above mentioned ideas and begin to implement it today.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for always being present when I pray to you. Give me the resolve and the discipline to make conversations with you a habitual part of my day, week, and month. AMEN!