Devotion:
For an audio version of this devotion, click here.
Read 1 John 4:9-14.
My mother was an amazing person! At Christmas, she would bake cakes and give them to others. I remember one year when she baked 21 layer cakes, each and every one of them from scratch! And we enjoyed her fruitcake, coconut cakes, jam cakes, and so on ourselves during the holidays. She was an excellent seamstress, and I cannot count the shirts and pairs of pants she made for me…even ties! She cut our hair, laundered our clothes, and helped us with our homework. There were five of us children in the family, and she managed to love us both together as a brood and also individually. Each of us thought we were her favorite, and the others never discovered the truth that I actually was it. Is it any surprise that I loved her so very deeply and still do, decades after her death?
Analogies using human examples to illustrate God’s love are never adequate, but they can help. God loves all humanity so much that God sent his Son into the world to save us. My mother’s love for others was not just an emotion or a sentiment…it was shown by her actions. God’s love is like that but even so much greater! And we are called to return that love and reflect it in our love for others.
Personal Worship Option:
Think for a moment about how you view God…creator, judge, mystery? Perhaps the greatest quality for us to remember about God is that God loves us, all of us together and each of us individually. And because we are so loved, we can return that love and show it to others.
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