<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="de+7:1-10">Deuteronomy 7:1-10</span></span></p><p>When the Bible says God is love, it is saying more than that God loves, or that God is loving, or even that God is lovely; it is saying that love is the power behind everything He does - love is not merely one of His attributes but His whole nature. God is not only the Author of loving acts; He is love in the very core of His Being. Our thoughts of God's love must be built on God's revelation about Himself in the Scriptures, not by projecting our own ideas about love on to Him. Let's focus, therefore, on what the Bible has to say about the God who is love. First, God's love is uninfluenced. By that I mean nothing in us can give rise to it and nothing in us can extinguish it. It is "love for nothing," as someone once put it. The love which we humans have for one another is drawn out of us by something in the object of our love. But God's love is not like that; His love is free, spontaneous, and uncaused. The passage before us today makes clear that there is no reason behind the love of God for His people. If you look for a reason you just won't find one. He loves because  He loves. No man or woman can ever explain why God loves us. To "explain" it would require that He loves us for something outside of Himself, and, as we have seen, He loves us for ourselves alone. And that love has its beginning not in us but in Himself. He is love's source as well as its river.</p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">O God, what security this gives me to know that Your love for me will never be diminished and never be taken away. Help me reflect on this and draw from it the inspiration I need to walk tall and strong through every day. In Jesus' Name. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="eph+2:1-10">Ephesians 2:1-10</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="1jo+3:1">1 John 3:1</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>How does Paul describe God's reason for saving us?</li><li>How does John put it?</li></ul></div></div>

Let a little light into your soul every day with this wonderful devotional from English pastor Selwyn Hughes.

Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

"The Lord did not  choose you because you were  numerous  But the Lord loved you " (vv. 7-8)

<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="1jo+2:28-3:11">1 John 2:28-3:11</span></span></p><p>Peacemaking is a positive attitude that produces good spiritual and mental health, and the one who has this attitude, according to Jesus, is to be envied and congratulated. The promise of the seventh Beatitude is that peacemakers "will be called sons of God". Why called? Because they are sons of God. This is their lot in life. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it like this: "The meaning of being called the sons of God is that the peacemaker is a child of God and that he is like his Father." If I were to pick out the one verse that most perfectly expresses the meaning of the Christian gospel, it would be this: "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself ' and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation"  (<span class="scriptRef" ref="2co+5:19">2 Corinthians 5:19</span>, RSV). Ever since man sinned, God has been engaged in the positive business of an outgoing love - seeking to reconcile those who did not want to be reconciled. God wants us to do what He does - He commits to us the same task of reconciliation. Those who are inwardly reconciled to God and seek to reconcile others to Him and to each other are the healthiest and the happiest people on earth. In two outstanding passages in the Bible, we are called sons of the Father - and for the same reason:  <span class="scriptRef" ref="mt+5:9">Matthew 5:9</span> and  <span class="scriptRef" ref="mt+5:45">Matthew 5:45</span>. What do we conclude from this? We are most like God when we are bringing people together in reconciliation. And those who try to reconcile others are doing the work of heaven - for it is heaven's work to reconcile us. </p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">O God my Father, I pray that You will help me become more and more like You. You are a Father who reconciles - make me into Your own divine image. Help me to breathe "peace" upon all I meet. For Your own dear Name's sake. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="ga+4:1-7">Galatians 4:1-7</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="joh+1:12">John 1:12</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="ro+8:14">Romans 8:14</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="heb+2:10">Hebrews 2:10</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>As sons, what have we become?</li><li>How are we led?</li></ul></div></div>

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (3:1)

<p> "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us." Consider who we were, and what we feel ourselves to be even now when corruption is powerful in us, and you will wonder at our adoption. Yet we are called "the sons of God." What a high relationship is that of a son, and what privileges it brings! What care and tenderness the son expects from his father, and what love the father feels towards the son! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ. As for the temporary drawback of suffering with the elder brother, this we accept as an honour: "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." We are content to be unknown with him in his humiliation, for we are to be exalted with him. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." That is easy to read, but it is not so easy to feel. How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow? Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled under foot? Does your faith almost fail you? Fear not, it is neither your graces nor feelings on which you are to live: you must live simply by faith on Christ. With all these things against us, now-in the very depths of our sorrow, wherever we may be-now, as much in the valley as on the mountain, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." "Ah, but," you say, "see how I am arrayed! my graces are not bright; my righteousness does not shine with apparent glory. " But read the next: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him. " The Holy Spirit shall purify our minds, and divine power shall refine our bodies, then shall we see him as he is. </p>

This timeless classic from Charles Spurgeon will help to both start and end your day with wonderful insight into God's Word.

Charles Spurgeon's Morning & Evening

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God." - 1 John 3:1,2

Morning Devotional

<p>When by a divine rescript we are designated the sons of God, a pledge is given that the following petition of Christ shall be fulfilled in our behalf: " That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them." Christ is the Son of God; but we are to be exalted to his own height of glory and majesty; we are to sit with him upon his throne; and it is to be manifest to all the universe that we too are sons of God. He has this pre-eminence over all, that he is what he is by virtue of his own incomparable merit; and we shall be what we shall be by virtue of the same merit, not ours but his. When Christ shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. </p><p>There are so many mere honorary titles in this world, that men are led to look upon the titles given in the word of God, as also honorary. But this is a serious error. When God gives titles, he bears testimony to the character of a man, makes known the man's relation to Him, and gives an earnest of what he intends to make of him. Christ gave Peter, in the days of his instability, when he was like a wave, driven with the wind and tossed, gave him even then the title of Peter, or rock, foreshadowing what he intended to make of him. </p><p>Beloved, we are now the sons of God, - called so and constituted so. "We have consequently unlimited life, unlimited wealth, unlimited privilege. Much has been bestowed, much is yet to be bestowed. When God says to me, " Thou art my son," he opens to me the door of an ascending stairway leading up to his throne. By the grace of God the steps are there before me and the liberty to ascend; but every several step is to be gained by an expanding faith, is to be conquered by the grace of God in me. If I have feeble conceptions of what God means by calling me his son, I shall linger in the lower steps; if I have higher and more correct views I will run boldly up the pathway of light. Let me believe that God has gone as far as it is possible for God himself to go in the enunciation of my privileges; that he has told me to look upon the seraphim and cherubim as no nearer to him than I myself am or am to be; that I have part and lot the most intimate in all the glory, majesty, affluence, power and blessedness of God; that my name is written along with his own over everything; that every being in the universe is commanded to love me under pain of being accounted guilty of treason against the Sovereign of the skies. I am a son of God, and therefore the representative of the invisible God. The world indeed knoweth us not, because it knew him not. But there is to be, in an hour known to God, the manifestation of the sons of God. </p>

A daily devotional written by a Baptist Missionary to India, Reverend George Bowen (1816-1888) over 150 years ago.

Bowen's Daily Meditations

"Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." - 1 John 3:1. 

<p>If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! § Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. § [God] predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.<br><br>Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me.<br><br>He who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. § To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.</p>

Daily Light on the Daily Path or Daily Light is a Christian daily devotional scripture reading published by Bagster & Sons about 1875. It has been reprinted continually since then. It consists of brief groupings of scripture passages which speak to prominent Biblical themes—two themes (morning and evening) for each day of the year. It appends no commentary, but simply allows scripture to speak for itself.

Morning Daily Light

 If children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. 

<p>This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. § Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!<br><br>His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things. § If children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.<br><br>I and My Father are one. § The Father is in Me, and I in Him. § My Father and your Father, and … My God and your God. § I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.<br><br>The church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.<br><br>Having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.</p>

 Of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 

<p>He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” § Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!<br><br>Be imitators of God as dear children. § If children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.<br><br>The brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. § Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.<br><br>Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame. § These things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. § As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.</p>

Evening Daily Light

 You were called into the fellowship of His Son. 

<p>Suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” § Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! § The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.<br><br>In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins … And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love.<br><br>The glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. § Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!</p>

 The Son of His love. 

<p><span class="bible-text "><span class="chapter-num mid-paragraph">3 </span>See what great love   the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!   And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.   </span></p>

See what great love<cr>1</cr>  the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!<cr>2</cr>  And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.<cr>3</cr> 

1 John 3:1

 1 See what great love   the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!   And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  

From Wikipedia: 

The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The NIV was published to meet the need for a modern translation done by Bible scholars using the earliest, highest quality manuscripts available. Of equal importance was that the Bible be expressed in broadly understood modern English.

The NIV is published by Zondervan in the United States and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. The NIV was updated in 1984 and 2011 and has become one of the most popular and best-selling modern translations.

OT: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia; additional sources;
NT: UBS Greek New Testament; Novum Testamentum Graece; additional sources;

New International Version

 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

<p><span class="bible-text ">See what great love   the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!   And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.   </span></p>

 See what great love   the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!   And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  

Bible Verse of the Day

November 28, 2021

1 John 3:1 NIV

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