For the Love of Jesus
Seasonal candy – it’s something I watch for a couple times of the year. Christmas has Brach’s Christmas peppermint nuggets and chocolate covered cherries. I know, you can find chocolate covered cherries any time, but I only like them at Christmas time. February is known for chocolates and flowers. But I look forward to the “conversation hearts.” You know, the little box filled with pieces of pure sugar that is shaped in a heart and has a word or sometimes two on them. Words like cutie pie, or be mine, or even now we can find the little hearts with sayings for today – like “text me.”In grade school I remember looking through the hearts to see which one I wanted to give to my siblings, they were, after all conversational hearts, why not use them to have a conversation. Unfortunately for my siblings, I never found much I wanted to say to them in that little box, so I was forced to eat the whole thing by myself.Even now, well past childhood, I will pick up a couple of boxes and then, I’m done with them until the next February. As I held my first box in my hands and looked through the hearts, I began to think about what God might write on them – if He was interested in using candy instead of His word to speak to us. Fortunately, He doesn’t use pure sugar to communicate, but He has said plenty concerning His love for us.In this month of love, take the time to meditate on just a few of the verses that God uses to speak His love over us. Let His love permeate your entire being, reaching to the very core of who you are. Allow His love to bind up the broken parts, renew your purpose in this life and set your sights on our King Jesus in a new way.Exodus 34: 6–7aThe Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,Psalm 86:15But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.Psalm 103:11–13For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.Psalm 136:26Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.John 3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.John 15:13Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.Romans 5:8God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.Romans 8:38–39For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.1 John 3:1aSee what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.1 John 4:16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.