Always New, a Living Love (Lent 12, 2024)

Our Eternal God IS Love and is therefore an infinite source out of Whom this love flows. This love is always new.  He can do (and be!) no other than Love.  It is His nature.

Just as the water of a wild and flowing river is never a recycled repeat of the same water again and again, but in every moment is new, flowing from its source, so is the love of God.  Only better than a river where the water recycles from the atmosphere and weather events, God’s love is truly new, expanding, and original in every moment.  It’s a living love.

This is why Scripture tells us that Jesus told the Samaritan woman “”If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)

Jesus, the Son of God, is also the One spoken of as the Lamb in the Book of Revelation.  “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘He will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'” (Revelation 7:17)

Exercise:

If God is Love, and His love is always new…
And if Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God (the Son and Spirit of God, respectively) in the Triune Godhead, then can anything separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”  By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. (John 7:37-39)?

Now read these Scriptures and identify how the indwelling Holy Spirit of God could be the source of this ongoing, new and living love in the hearts of those who believe, and to them He would be like “living water.” Ask yourself whether you love your neighbor like you’ve got inexhaustible love flowing from your heart. What stops you or me from loving like that?

Join me tomorrow for the significance of this never ending, always new Love of God in the lives of Christians.

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

• Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
•  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
• Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
• ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
• Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
• Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
• Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
• Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
• The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.
• Revelation in 40 devotionals for 2022 offered 40 vignettes, scenes, concepts, and thoughts to inspire us to read the Book of Revelation as it is written and to go deeper. They are archived beginning March 2, 2022.
• Last year’s devotionals “Created to Display His Image” explored what it truly means to be made in God’s Image and the profound significance of that fact. They are archived beginning February 22, 2023.