Christ Church Daily Devotion April 8 2024

The daily devotion for April 8th, 2024 focuses on the importance of love. It emphasizes that love comes from God and that those who love have been born of God and know Him. God showed His love by sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. We are encouraged to love one another because God has loved us. Although we cannot see God, His love is made complete in us when we love one another. The passage also mentions the importance of leading by example and putting our love into action. The suggested personal worship option is to reflect on how God put His love into action and pray for an opportunity to show love to someone through our actions. Welcome to Christ Church's Daily Devotion for April 8th, 2024. Today, we will be reading from 1 John, chapter 4, verses 7 through 14. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world, that we might live through Him. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us. He has given us of His Spirit and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. I was at a workshop recently in which a speaker who works on the staff of another conference of the United Methodist Church was giving a talk on how to start and lead house churches. I was really impressed when she said, Right from the beginning, I knew that if I was going to help others learn how to lead a house church, I had better start and lead one myself. Suddenly, she had my undivided attention and I listened to her as one who has credibility in her topic. Leaders and anyone who hopes to instruct others must experience for themselves what they teach. Leading by example. John makes it clear in today's passage that God expects us to show love to others. God has shown us incredible examples of God's love throughout time. But the greatest possible example or witness of God's love is His giving His Son to live and die in order that we might be saved and receive eternal life. Our love for others according to John and according to Jesus in John 1335 is the one thing that identifies us as people in whom God lives. God is love and we too must put our love into action. Your personal worship option today is to pause a few moments to reflect on the way God put love into action. It is easy to say we love people, but real love results in action. Pray for the opportunity to show someone today that you love them by your actions.