If Jesus came to you and said, "What would you like me to do for you?", what would you ask for?

I must admit, my initial reaction is for a temporal need--money, success with Best Care Ministry, safety on a trip. They are not bad things to want and it is good to ask God for them.

But, like King Solomon made the better request when he asked for wisdom, I wonder how much better it would be for me to ask, "Help me know Your love God so that I am made complete in my deepest need. And then give me a new nature, made alive by Your Spirit, to love others. Help me love better, to be comfortable with presence, to listen better, to be patient and to be ready for every opportunity. Amen."

I'm so thankful to be working on the subject of care because I am challenged at how little I actually focus my prayers and desires on how to love and care for others.

I hope this devotional post helps you, like it has me, to recognize the need to improve the way I love.

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INVOCATION

Almighty God, my Father, I call upon You and request of You that Your love may be found in me, Your servant.

I know not how to love as I ought, but You who are Love can reveal it unto me.

Show me the way to Love. Amen."

PSALM FOR THE WEEK 139

DAILY SCRIPTURE

Monday         I Corinthians 13:1-13

Tuesday        Matthew 5:38-48

Wednesday I John 3:11-18

Thursday     John 13:1-17

Friday           Romans 5:1-8

Saturday      I John 4:7-19

Sunday         Luke 6:37-42

A SELECTION FOR MEDITATION

"The first thing Paul says about love is that it is patient; 'Love is patient.' (I Cor. 13:4). The dictionary definition of patience is: 'The suffering of afflictions, pain, toil, calamity, provocation, or other evil, with a calm unruffled temper; endurance without murmuring or fretfulness.' The rood of patience is pati (suffer). The first emphasis, then, is that love can suffer, can take it. Since love is outgoing, and since by its very nature it insinuates itself into the sins and sufferings of loved ones its very first capacity must be to be patient, to have a capacity to take suffering and sorrow patiently. The very first step takes us to the cross at once, where, in a supreme way, Love showed its capacity to take on itself everything that would fall upon the loved one. So if love can go to the Cross straight off, it can go anywhere. It meets the supreme test, and all the other tests have been met in this initial test.

-- From The Way to Power and Poise by E. Stanley Jones

HYMN "He Loves Me"

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?

And did my Sov'reign die?

Would he devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I have done

He groaned upon a tree?

Amazing pity! grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide,

And shut His glories in.

When Christ, the mighty Maker, died

For man, the creature's, sin.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay

The debt of love I owe.

Here, Lord, I give myself away,

'Tis all that I can do.

He loves me; He loves me,

He loves me, this I know,

He gave himself to die for me

Because He loves me so!

Issac Watts

BENEDICTION

"I am sure that there is in me nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as just as You are. Yet You have declared your unchanging love for me in Christ Jesus. If nothing in me can win Your love, nothing in the universe can prevent you from loving me. Your love is uncaused and undeserved. You are Yourself the reason for the love wherewith I am loved. Help me to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found me. Then love will cast out fear; and my troubled heart will be at peace, trusting not in what I am but in what You have declared Yourself to be. Amen."

A.W. Tozer in The Knowledge of the Holy

The above was taken from the 42nd week, Charity, pp 327-334 in Disciplines for the Inner Life, by Bob Benson, SR. & Michael W. Benson. Changes I made are in italics. For over twenty-five years I have been greatly, comforted, challenged and taught as God spoke into my life and ministry through this book. I thank David Rambo, then President of the Christian & Missionary Alliance, for sending it to all official workers, which I was at that time.