The Love That Covers
Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8
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Do you have days when you are not showing others the “deep love” that Peter talks about? I do. In fact, there are times when—in spite of my best intentions—my love runs dry, even for people I really care about. Such is the sad truth of the human condition. Apart from the Creator, it is impossible to love in the way that he designed us: as vessels of his love. We will eventually run out of our own natural love for our spouses, children, or friends. But at that point we have a great opportunity to draw on the unfailing, everlasting love of God. It is a constant, renewable resource available to us twenty-four hours a day.
What about you? Maybe your husband’s decisions have caused you pain. Perhaps you are sleep-deprived and under extreme stress. Maybe someone has said hurtful things about you. Think for a few minutes about the relationship you find most difficult or the person you find hardest to love. Pray for God’s Spirit to pour into your heart the love that covers a multitude of sins.
Prayers:
LORD, I admit my lack of love and my desperate need for your unfailing love toward [insert name]. Help me to yield to your Spirit and experience deeper intimacy with you and your love for me. Then may your love so fill me that others around me feel splashes from the overflow. And in those relationships that are the toughest, grant me your love—which covers a multitude of sins.
Quotes:
The springs of love are in God, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts naturally, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
The One Year Bible Readings for today are: Daniel 2:24–3:30; 1 Peter 4:7–5:14; Psalm 119:81-96 and Proverbs 28:15-16.
