Profoundly Tender and Compassionate

 Deuteronomy 6:5  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Ephesians 5:1  Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

            Even from a worldly standpoint the Bible is a truly magnificent work of literature. The Bible is an anthology—a collection of works including poetry, law, narratives, documentaries, and apocalyptical writings—with approximately 40 authors spanning a history of approximately 1,500 years. Yet the Bible, with its variety of works and diversity of authors, has ONE central theme—it is the inspired work of God, our Heavenly Father and Creator of all that exists. If its central theme could be summed up in a single word, it would be the word LOVE.

            The Bible tells of a Great Creator—the LORD God Almighty—who created everything out of love, provided everything for that creation to exist out of love, and requires nothing in return but love. The simplest definition for love is “profoundly tender and compassionate.” God was so profoundly tender and compassionate with us that he sacrificed his only begotten Son that we might live. He placed our need for salvation over the life of his Son. Does that grip your heart the way it does mine? And what does God ask in return? That we love him. That we place the priority of giving God glory and honor above our own needs—whatever those temporary human needs might be. To love our Heavenly Father with all our whole being, and to be profoundly tender and compassionate with one another. LOVE is both the underlying and overarching theme of the entire Bible from front cover to back cover. In fact, the ultimate litmus test for life only in Christ is love.

1 John 4:7-11 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Gracious Heavenly Father,

            We stand in humbleness of heart and total awe that you should love us so much. Because of your great love you sacrificed your only begotten Son that we might live. How can we respond in any other way but to truly love you? We ask forgiveness when we fail to love others as you have taught us to do. Teach us to be a profoundly tender and compassionate people.

            In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen.

 

The devotional Profoundly Tender and Compassionate appeared first on Write From My Heart at writefrommyheartblog.blogspot.com

email: Dotty Willmon, writefrommyheartblog@gmail.com