DAILY DEVOTIONS with MICHELE

Love gives. Love puts others first. Love will change your life. Love will change the world if we'll let it.

We have to love God with all our hearts and then make a decision to love the people around us. God has given us the formula for love: To love Him, to love ourselves, so that we can love our fellowman. That means we’ve got to put God first and make a decision to get under His umbrella of love.

WWJD?  What would Jesus do?  God wants to know if you love Him enough to overlook what others have done to you.

Walking in love gives God the opportunity to move in our lives. After all, how much fun is life if we can’t get along with others? Former President Teddy Roosevelt believed that this was the secret to happiness. Make no mistake; if you’re hard to get along with, you won’t have a very happy life.

Forgiveness is a fruit of love, and like love, grows through cultivating holiness—wholesome, godly habits—in our hearts. We must constantly prune away the negative tendencies of our minds, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Today's Scripture Ephesians 4:15-16 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each...

Simply speaking kindly to someone who has offended you, or putting your arms around somebody who has hurt you can bring positive returns far out of proportion to the loving act itself. It’s just another love test.

The reason God commands us to love is because love is His nature. Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches, and we must abide in Him (see Jn. 15:1-5). In other words, our life is in Him.

Jesus said that we are supposed to lose our life for His sake in order to find it. We are supposed to give in order to be given back to...good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over (see Luke 6:38).