Love For Others

[Thompson, Darryl]

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Ellen G. White Estate, Devotional for January 16
Visit us at http://www.whiteestate.org
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Love For Others

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as
Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and
a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Eph. 5:1, 2. 

You are to follow God as dear children, to be obedient to all His
requirements, walking in love as Christ also hath loved us. . . . Love
was the element in which Christ moved and walked and worked. He came to
embrace the world in the arms of His love. . . 
We are to follow the example set by Christ, and make Him our pattern,
until we shall have the same love for others as He has manifested for
us. He seeks to impress us with this profound lesson of love. . . . If
your hearts have been given to selfishness, let Christ imbue you with
His love. He desires that we shall love Him fully, and encourages, yes,
even commands, that we shall love others as He has given us an example.
He has made love the badge of our discipleship. . . . This is the
measurement to which you are to reach,-"Love one another; as I have
loved you." What height, what depth and breadth of love! This love is
not simply to embrace a few favorites, it is to reach to the lowliest
and humblest of God's creatures. Jesus says, "Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
. . .
The love and sympathy which Jesus would have us give to others does not
savor of sentimentalism, which is a snare to the soul; it is a love that
is of heavenly extraction, which Jesus exemplifies by both precept and
example. But instead of manifesting this love, how often we are
alienated and estranged one from another. . . . The result is
estrangement from God, a dwarfed experience, a blighting of Christian
growth. . . . 
The love of Jesus is an active principle, uniting heart with heart in
bonds of Christian fellowship. Every one who enters heaven will on earth
have been perfected in love; for in heaven the Redeemer and the redeemed
will be objects of our interest. 


>From Devotional: Our Father Cares