LOVE MUST BE RECIPROCATED
Memorise: If ye keep my commandments, ye shall
abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s
commandments, and abide in his love. John 15:10
Read: John 15:9-10, Bible in one year: 1st Chronicles
23:25, Luke 18:35-19:10
God loves us so much the He gave us Himself as a gift.
Giving Jesus Christ to die for us was the same as giving
Himself to us (1st Timothy 3:16). But He did not stop there,
He went further, pointing out to us in Romans 8:32 that:
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up
for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us
all things.”
However, love should be a two-way exchange, and not one-
sided. If you love someone and your love is not being
reciprocated, after a while, something will happen to that
love. That love may grow cold or even die. The same applies
to the relationship between God and us. If you check
through the scriptures, you will learn that whenever God
does something for someone, He expects them to do
something in return. It is one thing to be loved and another
thing to abide in that love. While you were in your sins, God
demonstrated His love for you by sending Himself, in the
person of Jesus Christ, to die for you. When you respond to
this divine initiative by repenting of your sins and accepting
Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you will be washed by His
blood and forgiven. After this, God increases His love
towards you, and when you reciprocate, that love increases.
Love begets greater love. If you want to sustain or increase
the love that God has for you, reciprocate His love. In
today’s reading, Jesus tells us that when He came to earth as
a man, He was loved by the Father; but to sustain that love,
He had to keep the Father’s commandments. What the
Father expected of Jesus is what He expects of us today.
There is no way you will continue in God’s love when you
deliberately break His commandments or refuses to obey
Him. If He has loved you, He expects you to love Him too.
He expects your obedience. He also expects you to love
other brethren. How have you reciprocated the love of the
Lord? even though afflictions, persecutions, angles, Satan,
what we see and what we can’t see cannot separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:35-39),
disobedience, manifested by violation of His word, can deal
that love a terrible blow
ACTION POINT
List some things you have never done that you can start
doing to reciprocate the love of God. Do them from
today!
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