September 27

Keep Fervent In Your Love

"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

Keeping fervent in love means we are to love with intensity and determination. In fact, the Greek word for fervent means to "strain", to stretch, to reach beyond. That's what agape love is all about. It is about reaching beyond natural human love and loving others like God loves us, with an unconditional love. Jesus loves us with this type of love as well. He loved us so much that he suffered and died for us, and his blood, the blood that was spilt by His unconditional love for us, has covered our sins. We have the privilege of loving our brethren in that same manner. The choice is ours: will we focus on our brother's sins or will we cover them with the blanket of love and focus on Christ in them? Will we tear down the church or build the church up? If this type of fervent love were displayed in every church around the world, imagine the impact that the church of Christ would have in this dark world! Loving our brethren fervently may not always be an easy task; it will cause us to be stretched beyond what we are capable of doing on our own at times. Satan will be there making sure we see the unlovable, ugly sins in our brethren. What we do at that point will make the difference. Will we choose to focus on the sin or the sinner? Jesus chose the latter and, in doing so, fervent love flowed from the cross. We can only love fervently if we abide in Christ and allow Him to love through us. Let us each go forth this day and strain to reach that mark of love, allowing Christ to love through us.

 Father, thank you for your unconditional love! We are so undeserving and yet you freely love us. Help us to share that same type of love with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Help us to focus not on their sins, but on what Christ is doing in their lives. Let Christ's love flow through us and cover the sins, so that we might not even see them, but only Christ. Transform your church that we might bring you all glory and honor and praise! Amen