Joni And Friends Daily Devotional 18th February 2025, Tuesday Message
TOPIC: Love God
“’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” – Luke 10:27
TODAY’S MESSAGE
Of friendships, Hannah Whitall Smith has said, “A certain degree of reserve and distance seems to be the suitable thing in certain friendships. But there are other relations in life where… the friendship becomes love. The two hearts give themselves to each other to be no longer two but one.
“A union of soul takes place… separate interests and separate paths in life are no longer possible. Things that were lawful before become unlawful now because of the nearness of the tie that binds. The reserve and distance suitable to mere friendship become fatal in love… the wishes of one become binding obligations to the other, and the deepest desire of each heart is that it may know every secret wish or longing of the other in order that it may fly on the wings of the wind to gratify it.”*
If you have ever known this kind of friendship, if you have ever loved another enough to find sacrifice and service on his or her behalf a joy, then let it be the same toward Christ, the Lover of your soul. He loves you with far more than the love of friendship. He loves you as His bride. What passion! How can we not be passionate in return?
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Be generous in your self-surrender and be eager to throw yourself unreservedly at His feet. Jesus is calling you to a place of intimate nearness with Him. Don’t hesitate!
PRAYER: Lord, I don’t want to go where You cannot go with me. I don’t want to pursue anything in which You cannot share. I want to love You with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. I echo the words You said to our Father, “I desire to do Thy will, O my God.” (Psalm 40:8).
