From: "Phil Rembleski" <PHIl@rescuechurchofchrist.org>

To: "1111RESCUEMEMBERS"

Cc:

Sent: Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 4:59 AM

Subject: 12-13-24 THOUGHTS

 12-13-24   THOUGHTS

The PRACTICE OF LOVE is our job!  1John 4:16 “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”   Our love practice takes us from death to LIFE!  Love is then defined as our “laying down our life for the brethren.”  In other places, “for our neighbor”!  There’s some giving up here.  From verse 17, we could call it a “opening of the heart!!”  What we do determines who we are more than what we say.  John says, “in deed and truth.”  
1Cor 13:3b  “if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

1John 3:10-18    By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. 11   For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;  12  not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.  13  Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. 14   We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.  15  Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16  We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17  But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18  Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

My Prayer:
Father God, we see the essence of  Your  way in our reading today. Teach us the rightness of love, and the joy of practicing it.  Teach us to lay down our lives as Jesus laid down His life for us.  Help us see the cost of discipleship.  We cannot pay what is owed, but help us to know what was paid as the basis for our love and action.  Freely we have received, may we freely give.  Thank You for love, O Father.  Help us to seek its marvelous power in all things.  In the name of our Lord,      Amen.