Unending Love – Godly Life Part 11

Scripture: 2 Peter 1:3-11 TPT (Click Link)

5 So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, 6 and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, 7 and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love. (2 Peter 1:5-7 TPT)

We started with a faith foundation and we’ve been building on that foundation all the way through this series on Living a Godly Life. So now, to lives of grace and mercy toward our brothers and sisters, let’s add unending love. The capstone to all we’ve been building is love. And this love is unending love. It’s steadfast love. It’s lovingkindness. It’s unconditional love. It’s all the kinds of love God has so richly given us!

This love is love for people who love us in return. This love is love for people who are depending on us to love them. But it’s also love for people who are different from us. It’s love for people we have very little in common with. It’s love for people who couldn’t care less about us and our well-being. In fact, Jesus said it’s love for our enemies, for people who not only don’t care about us, but for people who wish us ill.

It’s patient love. It’s serving love. It’s foot-washing love. It’s giving love. It’s forgiving love. It’s going-the-second-mile love. It’s love that costs us in ways we didn’t expect, but we keep loving anyhow. It’s the same love that Jesus shows for us. It’s love that identifies us as Jesus’ friends and followers.

34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. (John 13:34-35 NLT)

Pastor Steve Mickel once used a phrase that so deeply impacted me that I now use it as a guide when I’m making difficult decisions, when I’m trying to do the right thing and not exactly sure what the right thing is. I actually have it posted just above my computer screen at my desk where I’m typing this. When we think about what living a Godly Life really consists of, It’s hard to go wrong if we simply ask “What Does Love Require?”

Prayer:

Father, May my friends and I always desire to know and do What Love Requires! Amen.