“We know and we rely on the love God has for us. God is love” 1 John 4:16
Heavenly Father, it’s impossible to exaggerate how much I cherish this verse. It’s one of a handful of Scriptures my spiritual father, Jack Miller, was always quoting. “Nothing is more certain, nothing is more reliable, nothing is more yours than your Father’s love.”—I can still hear Jack saying.
“Is it reliable?”—that’s a question we ask when choosing a car, an insurance company, a roofer—and especially a parachute. Trustworthiness is an essential category in life—and nowhere more so than in our relationship with you and your love.
So, thank you for emphatically affirming the knowability and reliability of your love for us. You know we need your love more than we realize—more than oxygen, blood, and water. So in what areas of life can we rely on your love?
For our salvation: Thank you for spending the currency of your love on the bankruptcy of our sin and deadness. We are saved 100% by your grace.
In our weakness and brokenness: You don’t love us more when we are “awesome” and less when we are a mess. You give us daily mercies because we need them . Thank you Abba.
In our difficult and messy relationships: We can rely on your love when we’d rather call down fire than grace; when we’re more lonely married than we were single; when there’s more tension than tenderness; when we’ve blown it with people we love; and when the call to forgive is 10 times greater than our will to forgive—to name a few.
As we face dying and death: You will hold us fast all the way Home. So Very Amen.
