Daily Devotions based on the Sermon Series: “Timely Teaching for Turbulent Times”
Week 4 of 6: “The Impact of Love!”
Full Sunday message, CONTEMPORARY or TRADITIONAL
THIS WEEK: LOVE God! How?
It’s not just muscle power.
“Strength” includes all of one’s abilities and capabilities to do something.
What strength do you have?
It’s easy to compare ourselves to others…and in our own minds come out on the losing end. We minimize our abilities, down play our talents, and are blind to our capabilities.
It’s hard to love the Lord with all our strength when we believe that all our strength is our own doing. This leads us to use our strengths to love ourselves. It is also hard to love the Lord with all your strength when we fail to see ALL the strengths we have been given. This leads to minimizing our worth and value.
So let’s shift our minds to understand where our strength comes from…the LORD.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
To love the Lord with all our strength is to love the LORD who gave me strength! I want to start with the perspective that who I am, the abilities I have, the personality I exhibit, and the talents I possess are all gifts from God.
To love the Lord with all our strengths is to realize all he has given me has the purpose to serve him.
1 Peter 4:11 If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
Love for the LORD shifts my focus to use all that he has given me to glorify him. So if I am using my talents in the work place, I use them to his glory. If I am working on my homework for physic class, I am studying to his glory. If I am making dinner for the family, I am serving to his glory. Loving the Lord with all my strength means I am using all my strengths to show my love for the LORD.
At times we feel physically weak or not capable of what is before us. When our strength is weak, our ability to continue also comes from the LORD.
Psalm 29:11 The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.
Ephesians 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,…
With forgiveness when we fail, we love the LORD with all our strength when we realize all our capabilities come from the LORD, all our strength is to be used to glorify the LORD and when we feel weak, we can depend on and rely on the strength the LORD gives.
Apply: How does your day change as you view every activity in which you participate as an opportunity to love the LORD with all of your strength?
Prayer:
Take my life and let it be; consecrated Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days; Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for thee.