Thursday: Living the Love We Promise
Ultimately, family cohesion and unity rest on the commitment of family members, beginning with the commitment of the marital partners, to care for one another. Sadly, Bible history is strewn with examples of failed promises, broken trust, and lack of commitment where it should have been present. Scripture also has stirring examples of ordinary people who, with God’s help, committed themselves to friends and families and kept their promises.
Look at the following families and their levels of commitment. How could commitment have been strengthened in some families? What encouraged the commitment shown in the others?
People in the hand of God
Parent-child commitment (Gen. 33:12-14, Exod. 2:1-10).
Sibling commitment (Gen. 37:17-28).
Family commitment (Ruth 1:16-18; Ruth 2:11-12, Ruth 2:20; Ruth 3:9-13; Ruth 4:10, Ruth 4:13).
Marital commitment (Hos. 1:2-3, Hos. 1:6, Hos. 1:8; Hos. 3:1-3).
When we commit ourselves to another person, as in marriage or in the decision to bear or adopt a child, there must be a willing surrender of ourselves in order to make a different choice in the future, a surrender of control over an important segment of our lives. Laws may restrain negative behavior, but marriage and family relationships need love within them to enable them to flourish.
| What does Jesus’ promise of commitment (Heb. 13:5) mean to you personally? What effect should His commitment to you have on your commitment to Him, to your spouse, to your children, and to fellow believers? |
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“Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
God’s promised love has been revealed most dramatically in the death of Christ on the cross of us.
No limits are placed on the divine love.
The love of God is as broad as the wide world.
1. It is wide without being shallow.
2. It reaches out to include all people of all colors, countries, and cultures.
The love of God reaches to the farthest point in its quest to redeem and forgive.
1. It reaches back into the past and extends forward into the future.
2. God always has loved us and always will continue to love us.
The love of God reaches down to find and bless us in our deepest need.
1. Sin cannot cover a person to the extent that the love of God is unable to reach down and lift him or her up.
The love of God has brought the Son of God down from on high to meet our deepest need.
God gave an eternal Love...let us love one another unconditionally!
1. We are all sinners without the power to save ourselves or to lift ourselves to a position where we would please God.
2. What we were unable to do, God’s love has done for us.
The Purpose of Love
a. The promise of God’s unending love for us is no sedative to lull our souls to sleep in spiritual indifference. (2 Cor. 5:14)
As a family of the Living we are required to give our to all unconditionally.
God loved us first with no condition!
Commitment means "dedication to cause or activity." That is certainly an attitude missing today. Maybe because people are most preoccupied with what they are going to get, or not to lose! Love for self blindly overcomes altruism. Frustration is poorly accepted. Stress, agitated life and missing of spiritual life may influence to defocus on commitment.
How do you rekindle lost love? how do you love the unloveable or very selfish person? how do you love someone who has no respect for God?
Without commitment in the family and love for one another they will not but enmity and strife in that family.our home can only stand if Jesus the center of all we do on our homes.