ANCHORED
TO GOD’S LOVE
BREAD
4 The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of
destruction overwhelmed me. 5 The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of
death confronted me. 6 In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God
for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his
ears. 7 The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of
the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. 8 Smoke
rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals
blazed out of it. 9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were
under his feet. 10 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the
wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him--the
dark rain clouds of the sky. 12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning. 13 The
LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. 14 He
shot his arrows and scattered [the enemies], great bolts of lightning and
routed them. 15 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the
foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of
breath from your nostrils. 16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he
drew me out of deep waters. 17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes,
who were too strong for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the
LORD was my support. 19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me
because he delighted in me. Psalms
18:4-19 (NIV)
14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced
that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And
he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but
for him who died for them and was raised again. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (NIV)
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God
is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for
us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who
will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who
justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more
than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also
interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As
it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as
sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39 (NIV)
9 “As the Father has loved me,
so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as
I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that
your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each
other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.” John
15:9-14 (NIV)
16 “For God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17 (NIV)
27 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them,
and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall
never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no
one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
John 10:27-30 (NIV)
3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have
loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)
BUTTER
“May God bring home to you a sense of your
safety in Christ Jesus! May He assure you that your name is graven on His hand
and whisper in your ear the promise, ‘Fear not, for I am with you.’” Charles H. Spurgeon
“For the love of
God is broader than the measures of man’s mind; and the heart of the Eternal is
most wonderfully kind.” Frederick
William Faber
“When
we are anxious we are inclined to overprepare. We wonder what to say when we
are attacked, how to respond when we are being interrogated, and what defense
to put up when we are accused. It is precisely this turmoil that makes us lose
our self-confidence and creates in us a debilitating self-consciousness. What
is important is not that we have a little speech ready but that we remain
deeply anchored in the love of Jesus, secure about who we are in this world and
why we are here.” Henri
Nouwen
“We need to keep our heart full of a sense
of the love of God. This is the greatest perspective available to us against
the power of temptation in the world...Fill your heart with a sense of the love
of God in Christ, and apply the eternal design of grace and shed blood to
yourselves. Accept all the privileges of adoption, justification, and
acceptance with God. Fill your heart with thoughts of the beauty of
holiness...then in the ordinary course of
walking with God, you will experience great peace and security from temptation.”
John Owen, Sin and Temptation
ed. John Houston
“‘There is no fear in love’, writes the
apostle John, ‘but perfect love drives out fear…’ He goes on to point to the
source of that perfect love: ‘We love
because He first loved us’. In other
words, the cure to fear is not a change in circumstances, rather a deep
grounding in the love of God. I ask God
to reveal His love to me directly, or through my relationships with those who
also know Him—a prayer I think God takes great delight in answering. When I get depressed about my present
failures, I ask God to remind me of my true identity: one who will be made
perfect and has already been forgiven. ‘You’ve got to go deeper’, said the nun to my burned
out pastor. ‘Sink the well into a water
table that never runs dry’…Thomas Merton conceded that everything in modern
city life conspires against such surrender.
We worry (fear) about money, about what we need to have and to know,
about whom to compete with and what is slipping out of our control…(he) found
the secret to true freedom: If we live
to please God alone (the One who loves us), we set ourselves free from the
cares and worries that press in on us.” Phillip Yancey
“Love
of man necessarily arises out of love of God.”
John Hooper
“God’s love is
always supernatural, always a miracle, always the last thing we deserve.” Robert Horn
HEART SAVOR
· God
loves us with an everlasting love.
· Those
beloved of the Lord will rest secure in Him shielded all day long. 38 For
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither
the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
· We are to love others as Christ loves us
– through His power and for His glory.
