Focus Scripture: Psalm 119:9-16 ESV
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
11 I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
12 Blessed are you, O LORD;
teach me your statutes!
13 With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.
14 In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
16 I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
***
I wonder…
Do I really love God and His Word?
Do I love others like Jesus loves me? Isn’t the true test of our
love for God and His Word proven in the way we love others?
Won’t we love others like Jesus loved us if we really love Him?
Loving God is the greatest commandment.
But the true test of our love for God and our love for His Word is
whether or not we love others like Christ loved us.
Consider these Scriptures…
TAKING GOD’S WORD TO HEART
1 John 3:14-15 ESV
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love
the brothers. Whoever 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.
1 John 3:16-18 ESV
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we
ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone
has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need,
yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love
abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in
word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have
prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have,
and if I deliver up my body to be burned,
but have not love, I gain nothing.
But… what does true love look like?
1 Corinthians 13:4-13
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast;
it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice
at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.
As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues,
they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like
a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man,
I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly,
but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall
know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
How are you doing? I don’t know about you, but I needed
to cry out to God because I don’t love others like
He loves me. He loves me so wonderfully. He is so patient,
so kind. He is never irritable. He bears all things, endures all things…
Lord God, we want to love you and your Word completely,
absolutely, totally, radically, sacrificially, truly, sincerely,
fully, continually, cheerfully, and on and on.
Oh, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me a sinner.
Help! I need your help! I want to love you,
I want to love your Word, I want to express that love
by loving others as you have loved me.
Let us continue to cry out to God to do the work in
our hearts, pleading with God to help us seek Him
with our whole heart so that we can worship Him
in all that we do and say morning, noon, and night.
MEDITATE and MEMORIZE
Write the following verses from Psalm 119
and say them aloud three times.
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
11 I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
12 Blessed are you, O LORD;
teach me your statutes!
PRAYER
Lord God, I am depending on your mercy.
It is only your mercy and your grace that can
meet my need for you. May I love you and you alone.
May I exalt above all things your name and your Word.
May I love you with my WHOLE heart.
I want to love others as you have loved me!
By Laurie Akers
