Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for bringing your family before the Lord with such a tender and Christ centered prayer. Your desire for unity, love, humility, patience and kindness is exactly what God desires for the home, and He delights to hear you ask for it.
Scripture tells us that God is love, and that love is of God. Everyone who loves in this divine way is born of God and knows God. This is not the shallow sentiment that the world often calls love, nor is it merely the natural affection we have for family and friends. There is a fleshly love that seeks only to get and to satisfy self, and there is a soulish love that is dear and emotional but often depends on being loved in return. The love God pours into His children is different. It is agape, a giving, self sacrificing love, the same love that moved Him to give His Son for us. It does not ask what it can receive, but what it can give.
That is why the proof that His Spirit is at work in us is this kind of love for one another. When we dwell in that love, God dwells in us and His love is made complete in us. It becomes visible in the family as we choose to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us.
You prayed to forgive as you have been forgiven, and that is the very measure Scripture gives us. We are to forgive as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us, and to love as Christ has loved us. That is a high calling, but it is possible because we love Him because He first loved us. When we truly see how fully and freely He has loved and forgiven us, without our earning it and without it ever being quenched, our hearts respond. His love cannot be bought or earned, it is simply received, and then it flows through us to others.
In the family this love looks like what you prayed for. It suffers long and is kind. It is humble, not insisting on its own way. It is patient, bearing with one another, just as God is so patient with us as He brings His work to completion. It does not live to please self, but in consideration for the other, so that unity is guarded. True unity is not that we never differ, but that love binds us together as one, as husband and wife become one, in a deep and lasting oneness that reflects His own nature.
So continue to seek Him together. Keep looking to Jesus as your example in both love and forgiveness. Ask the Holy Spirit to shed this giving love abroad in each of your hearts, and to strengthen you to walk in it day by day.
I join you in prayer now. Father, thank You for Your great love poured out through Jesus Christ. Thank You that You first loved us and forgave us so freely. I ask that You fill this family with that same agape love. Help them to dwell in Your love so that You dwell in them. Teach them to forgive as You have forgiven, to walk in humility, patience and kindness, and to reflect Christ in all they do. Bind them together in the unity that comes from Your love, strengthen their faith, and draw each one closer to You. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Scripture tells us that God is love, and that love is of God. Everyone who loves in this divine way is born of God and knows God. This is not the shallow sentiment that the world often calls love, nor is it merely the natural affection we have for family and friends. There is a fleshly love that seeks only to get and to satisfy self, and there is a soulish love that is dear and emotional but often depends on being loved in return. The love God pours into His children is different. It is agape, a giving, self sacrificing love, the same love that moved Him to give His Son for us. It does not ask what it can receive, but what it can give.
That is why the proof that His Spirit is at work in us is this kind of love for one another. When we dwell in that love, God dwells in us and His love is made complete in us. It becomes visible in the family as we choose to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us.
You prayed to forgive as you have been forgiven, and that is the very measure Scripture gives us. We are to forgive as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us, and to love as Christ has loved us. That is a high calling, but it is possible because we love Him because He first loved us. When we truly see how fully and freely He has loved and forgiven us, without our earning it and without it ever being quenched, our hearts respond. His love cannot be bought or earned, it is simply received, and then it flows through us to others.
In the family this love looks like what you prayed for. It suffers long and is kind. It is humble, not insisting on its own way. It is patient, bearing with one another, just as God is so patient with us as He brings His work to completion. It does not live to please self, but in consideration for the other, so that unity is guarded. True unity is not that we never differ, but that love binds us together as one, as husband and wife become one, in a deep and lasting oneness that reflects His own nature.
So continue to seek Him together. Keep looking to Jesus as your example in both love and forgiveness. Ask the Holy Spirit to shed this giving love abroad in each of your hearts, and to strengthen you to walk in it day by day.
I join you in prayer now. Father, thank You for Your great love poured out through Jesus Christ. Thank You that You first loved us and forgave us so freely. I ask that You fill this family with that same agape love. Help them to dwell in Your love so that You dwell in them. Teach them to forgive as You have forgiven, to walk in humility, patience and kindness, and to reflect Christ in all they do. Bind them together in the unity that comes from Your love, strengthen their faith, and draw each one closer to You. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
