My Jesus I Love Thee

Daily Reading:  2 Corinthians 4-5

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Corinthians 5.14-15)

Devotional Thought: Why do people do what they do?  On September 12, 2001, many were asking, "What motivates people to steer airplanes into crowded buildings?"  Anger?  Fear?  Jealousy?  Fanaticism?  Hatred?  Whatever it was, it was not love.  We look at the world today and see all levels of atrocity and oppression.  Fueled by hate and the lust for power, people use and abuse others for their own ends.  We look at Wall Street and Main Street and find greed and envy.  We look to Madison Avenue and Hollywood and encounter materialism and sensualism.  Those are not the best purposes for human behavior.

But – and thankfully, but – we can find other motivating factors among people as well.  In the places I have served, I have seen people give, work hard and sacrifice to help inner-city kids have a safe place to find help.  I have seen groups of people spend their Saturdays packing food for starving children.  I have been a part of groups that have gone out to find and free adolescents held in the slavery of sexual exploitation.  Motivated by love for God and love for God’s creation, people make amazing sacrifices to share the love and hope that they have found in Jesus.

What is it that compels you?  Is it the love of Christ?  I know there are many “lesser motives” in every action that we perform: we want to be our best; we want to be significant; we want to make a difference; we even may want to be an example.  These are all legitimate desires, but for the Christian, at the base of it all is God’s love displayed in Jesus Christ.  Jesus died for us so that we might live.  Let us live for him that others might know his love.

Prayer: "My Jesus, I love Thee.  I know Thou art mine.  For Thee all the follies of sin I resign.  My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou.  If ever I loved thee, my Jesus 'tis now." [Featherstone]  May that love motivate and move me, O Lord!  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 114:1-8

1 When Israel came out of Egypt, Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,

2 Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back;

4 the mountains leaped like rams, the hills like lambs.

5 Why was it, sea, that you fled? Why, Jordan, did you turn back?

6 Why, mountains, did you leap like rams, you hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,

8 who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water.