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The Weekly Word: Love Is…

By Pastor Coulter Page, Bethany Alliance Church, Charles City

I am blessed to have a mini-me. I am blessed to be raising a 3-year-old-boy. Most people who know me and my son would quickly say, “He is the spitting image of his father.”

In so many ways, when somebody sees Tzuriel, they see Coulter. He smiles like his dad. He talks like his dad. He walks like his dad. He enjoys what his dad enjoys. In so many respects, he is just like me.

The Weekly Word: Love Is…
Pastor Coulter Page

Because I am human, that can be good and bad. I can easily teach him not so great things — quick temperedness or obnoxiousness. Other times I can teach him some incredibly good things — sweetness and thoughtfulness.

Through it all, he is learning from me. He knows what these things are because of what I model for him. The same is true with our Heavenly Father, God.

John says it this way:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

— 1 John 4:7-12

While there is lots of conversation these days about what love is, the truth is as John says it, “love is from God.” You and I only know what love is by looking to God, and God displayed what love is by sending his Son as a “propitiation for our sins.”

God showed us love by taking our place. We can know what love is by knowing Jesus. We can know that love is a willingness to lay down everything for the other.

My son is learning how to talk, walk, and behave by looking at me. Just as my son looks to me, we need to be looking to Jesus. When we look at Jesus, we will see love. My questions for you are:

• Have you personally experienced the love Jesus offers?

• How can you live like Jesus and love someone else this week?


Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank you for your love. I did not deserve it. I did not earn it. Yet you loved me enough to give everything for me. Thank you. Now I live for you. Allow me to love others just as you have loved me. It is through your example and your lead that I live. Amen!

• • •

None of us were meant to go this life alone. God created us for community. Here at Bethany Alliance Church we are a family striving to love like Jesus loved. If you would like to journey with us, join us Sundays at 10:02 a.m. either in person at 1100 Clinton Street or online at bethanyalliancechurch.online.church. Hope to see you Sunday!

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