Forward In Love - Wednesday, January 23

“Does God really love me?” That question has been answered again and again through the scriptures shared in this devotional. Though one critical question remains… “Do you love God?” I mean really LOVE God? Do you?
Do your thoughts drift to Him in unguarded moments? Do you long for more moments alone with Him? Are there times when your impulses lead you one direction, but your simple love for God restrains you and just won’t let you go that way?
Do you love God before anyone else, more than anyone else? Have you scrapped the sides of your soul and allowed the Holy Spirit to inspect your heart like a magnified mirror to stare directly at your heart? What price would you pay to get closer to God? What would you give up to be more like Him? How much are you willing to lose for His sake? If your relationship with God cost you your friends, family, future, where would you bail out?
We have spent so much time, consciously, subconsciously, in conversations, in our thoughts and in attitudes and actions, asking the question, “Does God really love me?”. But, have we neglected the most important question in the world, “Do I really love God?”
Pray with me, “Lord today we pray, take us higher, deeper, farther. Help us to increase our love for you.”

Forward In Love - Tuesday, January 22

“…..Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6-8

No question about it, God loves us. His love for us precedes our love for Him. Our love for Him is a result of His love for us. He is the initiator; we are the responders.
While we were separated from Him, not even acknowledging His existence, He was arranging the circumstances of our lives so that we could hear the whispers of His love again. Those voices came through friends, parents, family members, dreams, memories, T.V. shows, radio broadcasts, sermons, songs, the witness of creation, impressions and the Bible.
The most important revelation of God’s love is not spoken, claimed or written, but demonstrated. While we were oblivious to our responsibility to love God, He showed His love for us. Someone may die for a good man, but Christ died for us while we were sinful.
Thank God today for loving us before we were even aware of it.

Forward In Love - Monday January 21

Today I saw God ___________________. Spend the rest of the day filling in this blank.

Forward In Love - Sunday, January 20

And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength.
Isaiah49:5


As God’s love grows in our hearts, we are more and more set free from our prejudices, agendas and selfish interests. We are transformed into servants of God. The entire human race was created to worship God and enjoy Him forever. The fall of humanity and presence of sin have switched all of us to another track, but it has not changed God’s purpose in the smallest degree.
When Jesus enters our lives and we live in a relationship with Him, we become aware of God’s purpose for each of us. We were created for God; He made us for His purpose. The realization of our life’s purpose is the most joy-filled realization on earth.
The first thing that God does as we understand our purpose is shove a love for the entire world through the channels of a single human heart. God’s love is introduced into us but is focused through John 3:16, “God so loved the world…” We have to keep our soul open to the simple purposes of God that were introduced to us when we first met Jesus. We cannot allow the purposes of God to become muddied with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to crush our intentions, as painful as it might be.
Our greatest purpose is to be God’s servant and to glorify Him. When we understand that Jesus’ saving work of making us new creations made us perfectly compatible to God, then we understand why God is so relentless in His demands of our life. God requires a lot of His servants because He has put His nature in us. Today, live in the awareness that forgetting God’s purpose for your life is life’s greatest diversions.

Forward In Love - Saturday January 19

So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?
2 Corinthians 12:15

One of the sure signs that God’s love has rooted itself in our hearts is that we begin to intentionally recognize God’s interest in other people. We don’t view people as resources to forward our own interest. We look at people and ask, “What is God doing in that person’s life and how can I partner with God in that work?”
As God’s love spreads through us, we are less and less led by our own affinities. This is one of the biggest tests of the strength of our relationship with Jesus. Love is growing in us for all people, not just select people. I have always been impressed with the Apostle Paul for this reason. He poured his life out with one goal; that by every means possible, he would win some people to Jesus. Paul always attracted people to Jesus, he did not attract them to himself.
When we live to serve our own interests, Jesus doesn’t have access to use us. We are closed air tight and locked down with our own agendas. Paul knew how to serve people without resenting their inconsistencies because Jesus was the center of his life and he knew that God’s love for him was real. Bring your plans to Jesus today and lay them at His feet. Offer Him the following prayer: “Jesus, today I lay my interests at Your feet. I surrender my agenda and I exchange it for Yours. Help me to see what You are doing in other people all around me today.”

FORWARD In Love - Friday January 18

For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone.
Romans 14:7

Do you realize that we are spiritually responsible for other people? Wasn’t this the nature of Cain’s response to God when God asked him where his brother was? Cain said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The silent echo across the pages of time is “Yes”.
If I allow my relationship with God to grow cold, those closest to me will suffer; they may be influenced to do the same thing. If my prayer life suffers, someone else’s prayer life may suffer also as a result. If I neglect fellowship with other Christians, they will miss the encouragement I could have brought. The idea of American individualism is an overstatement. No one is that unconnected, no one that isolated. Each one of our lives impacts some group of people. When our spiritual heat cools, frigidness flows into those near us.
Are we willing to live under the tension and responsibility that someone else’s spiritual life is in some way dependant upon our own? Are we willing to be spent for God? Are we willing to be like Christ and be broken bread and poured out drink for Him?
Our lives as servants, as workers and as ministers is the way that we say “thank you” to God for His unspeakable love for us.

FORWARD In Love - Thursday January 17

“…the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:28


Paul and Jesus had the same idea about serving. It was their mission. Sometimes we focus so much on the options we have and the rights we have, that we do not see the spirit of our mission. All believers are called, as Jesus and Paul were, to be “doormats” for other people.
Paul’s idea of serving was, “I will spend myself to the last drop for you; you can affirm me or curse me, neither matters. As long as there is someone who does not know Christ, I am in debt to him, to serve him until he knows.” The motivation for Paul’s serving was not humanitarian or love for people, but love for God.
If we think our call to serve is primarily motivated out of our love for people, we will be crushed. We will quickly realize that people are often times ungrateful, dysfunctional and inconsistent in returning the love we gave them. If our call to serve is motivated by our love for God, how people treat us will be irrelevant to our call.
Paul realized that the secret to dealing with people is remembering how Jesus dealt with them. Before coming to Jesus, Paul admitted to being the chief sinner; so, no matter how people treated him, Paul realized they would never treat him worse than he had already treated Jesus. Yet Jesus had continued to serve Paul with love and faithfulness.
There is only one right motivation for serving people. It is because you love God. If you serve because you love God, you will become a more effective servant. You will stop expecting other people to meet the needs in you that only God can meet.
Be brave. Love and serve people because you love God.