Can love change things? We hear the word too often and our troubles continue. And yet. . . . love is the seed that gives birth to new life. Love is the backbone of sacrifice. Love is the yardstick of forgiveness. Love is the laughter in times of pain. And scripture tells us God is love. Yes, love changes everything. Today’s Sunday Psalm is a prayer seeking that God and God’s powerful, healing love.
Tender, Compassionate God:
In the Psalms you tell us you store our tears in a bottle. There is not one injustice, ache, loss, doubt, and trauma of ours you do not know intimately and intend to make right. You long to comfort us as a mother gathering a child close to her breast. In your great love you sent your son to touch the untouchable, walk with the lonely, heal the broken, and see the unseen. You wept when Lazarus died.
You care for each of your children, those in our neighborhoods and families and work places. You are with the hungry and lost in our world. You love unconditionally.
Today we seek you powerful, healing love.
Your hessed is active, powerful love. Your love is more than sentiment. You raised Lazarus from the grave. You sacrificed your Son to reverse and redeem our loss and pain and brokenness.
Pour out your redemption and grace on us this day.
Create in us a heart after your heart. Enliven our worship with your Holy Spirit. Fill our work with your power. Burn away our selfishness and other impurities. Make us shine with and for you.
Amen
Thank you for these little lessons. Today was especially good. Keep up the good work!
You’re welcome, Chris. I hope all is well in your part of the world.
a worthy prayer for something very important that we should be aware of, and desire,… not only for ourselves, but also for others,… I think that my own question about this is: are we able to understand what helps to bring about improved conditions so that God’s generous Love is able to permeate our surrounding situations, as well as our “personal relationship” with Him?,…
I found these 2 scriptures below, as “drawing near to God” came to me as a thought,… as you will see, they also came with recommendations to clear a better path for connecting honestly with Him,… humility and repentance and finding our own sincere place of love will always help,… and I pray these “attitude changes” can begin to happen “in the world”, which has become a scene of much defiance and hardness of heart,… maybe God can help the “proverbial pendulum swing”,…
James 4:8
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Matthew 15:8
‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” (Jeremiah 33:3)
I think this was the verse that I was actually looking for when I found the others, yesterday,… but both perspectives are true,… and then this one also came to mind ~
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)
yes, we truly wish to be immersed in God’s Love, which would be a tremendous Blessing,… and we wish this for others, as well,… and it seems that that would really bring about a tremendous Renewal, which I’m sure many many are longing for,…
in the meantime, as we hope and wait, maybe God is hoping that we will, ourselves, become tremendous “lovers” in ways that will also help to begin and bring about this Grand Renewal,… (-:
p.s.: great question ~ how do we do that?,… !
I’m grateful my prayer sent you on a scripture scavenger hunt! And a fruitful one. I think the power behind any how do we do that? question is cooperation with the Holy Spirit. We become great lovers by being loved by Great Love. And likewise our understanding stems from being understood by God. The closer we come to the Source of life the more life we are able to live out.
Amen!