1 John 4:7-9
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.
I have a picture of my dad taken in 1950, standing with five of his brothers in front of a couple of 40’s-era cars. As I looked at it recently, I felt a longing to see my Dad once more and tell him how much I love him. This man with only an eighth grade education had wisdom which cannot be taught in schools. But beyond that, he was a man who was filled with love for others.
Dad taught me what it was to know the Lord. He did that in many ways, not all of them pleasant. I can vividly remember that in the second drawer of his chest of drawers, he kept an old fashioned razor strap. They were created for sharpening the straight razors used by men back in the early days to shave. Those straps may have been designed to sharpen the razors, but they were objects of terror to the behinds of young boys!
Across the years, since receiving the Lord as my personal Savior, I have grown in my love for Him. There have been times when I felt His hand of discipline, but I always knew that it was for my own good. I also have come to realize that when the Lord has had to discipline me, it hurts Him more than it does me. He only brings about the discipline because of His great love and concern for me. Fredrick Whitfield must have felt that same way when he wrote the words to the hymn, O How I love Jesus.
The chorus goes like this: O, how I love Jesus, O, how I love Jesus, O, how I love Jesus–because He first loved me!
May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!
—Pastor Cecil