RECEIVE GOD’S LOVE

I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.- JOHN 17:26

Jesus did not despise me when I yelled at my children. He delivered me from controlling anger. He also set me free from enslaving lust. How has Jesus made God the Father known to you?

When you see Jesus talking and acting in the gospels, do you realize you are seeing who the Father truly is? His nature, kindness, and compassion are shown towards very needy people like us. He doesn’t turn away from you when you have been giving your “love” to all the wrong people, like the woman at the well in Samaria (John 4:18). Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He has pulled back the curtain on the mystery of the almighty God of the universe. This God is not merely a man as was the tricky Wizard of Oz. Our God is all powerful, yet all loving. He could squish us, like a bug underfoot, but he chooses to save us. He could be living afar off, but he decided to live inside us through his Spirit. He could put us on hold, but we never get a busy signal when we call him. Wonderful Saviour!

Jesus wants us to know Daddy God so well that we are filled to overflowing with his love in our hearts. Don’t be content with just knowing God’s love in your head. That was me for decades. I didn’t feel his love in my heart. A lot of garbage and baggage was in the way. A lot of lies obscured the truth. God loves Jesus unconditionally. God loves us unconditionally in the same way he loves Jesus Christ, his beloved son in whom he is well pleased. (John 17:22-23, Matthew 3:17)

If you don’t believe in your heart that God loves you, pray the following:

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for making Daddy God known to your disciples and to me. Thank you for continuing to make him known to me so that Daddy’s love for you may be in me, and you, Jesus, may be in me. This is so amazing. Help me to receive the truth of your love in my heart today.

Throughout this Day: Listen to this song called “We are One”

Put God’s Priorities First

If we trust God and seek to honor Him in our decisions, we’ll have the chance to see Him work mightily.

1 Kings 3:5-14

Imagine if God showed up and said, “What do you want? Ask, and I’ll give it to you.” How would you answer? Most of us would ask for loved ones’ safety, enough money to meet our needs, or a long, healthy life. Solomon may have been tempted to name something similar—but he made a different request. What he wanted was an understanding heart so he could serve God’s people well.

Solomon’s life was full of personal needs and desires not so different from our own. But when given the opportunity to ask God for anything, he prioritized the Lord’s concerns. God was so pleased with the request that He gave Solomon not only wisdom but riches and honor as well (1 Kings 3:13)! This encounter foreshadows Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you” (Matthew 6:33).

God won’t necessarily give wealth, influence, or long life because we put His priorities first, but He will always be faithful to provide all we need according to His purposes. Solomon’s heart was set on seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness, and the Lord honored that in a multitude of ways—both tangible and intangible. When we make God’s priorities ours, we too will have the chance to see Him work mightily in our life.

A New Place to Dwell

The one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal.

Revelation 21:15–16

In the past, God dwelled among His people, Israel, in the temple in Jerusalem, but that was destroyed. After the temple’s destruction at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, God promised that He would build a new temple (Ezekiel 40 – 43). Though a second Jerusalem temple was built, it was a shadow of the first and clearly not a fulfillment of that promise (Haggai 2:2-3)—a promise that was ultimately fulfilled through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus (John 2:19-22).

In the temple, God’s presence was focused in the Most Holy Place, an inner sanctuary that was constructed as a perfect cube. Only one man was permitted to enter, and he, the high priest, could only enter once a year. Then, centuries later, and with that first temple nothing but a distant memory, the apostle John received this vision of the new city of God’s eternal kingdom, and it is portrayed as a perfect cube—but now not one that would fit in a building in one Middle-Eastern city but one with an area as large as the known world of John’s day.

In the new creation there will be no particular place where God’s presence will be concentrated. There will be no special building to visit if we want to meet God, because there will be no distance between God and us. John “saw no temple in the city” (Revelation 21:22) because, in that day, God will be there, fully and spectacularly in a way that we cannot yet comprehend; and so everything will be temple space. This is a radical picture of something that is brand new—a transformation in circumstances so vast, so rich, and so wide that, as the apostle Paul puts it, we cannot imagine “what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

If we are united with Christ, God’s presence is with us through the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, our knowledge of God and our intimacy with Him are still limited. Our present state is certainly not all that we might long for, nor is it all that He intends for us. That is yet to come—but come it will.

Do you live in eager expectation of this unimaginable intimacy with God? If you are sincerely anticipating this permanent dwelling place with God, it will be apparent by the purity of your life and by a passionate concern to see friends, relatives, and neighbors come to know Christ. Knowing we have this great hope, we will be purified, even as Christ is pure (1 John 3:3)—and we won’t be able to help but tell others about Jesus, both by life and by lip.