Daily Devotions

1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

In recent days, I have been seeing many posts in the FaceBook with photos depicting the love of parents and grandparents for their children and grandchildren. These pictures depict the love and sacrifices that were shown and given to the children and grandchildren.

There is a great amount of tolerance and affection given to the little ones, in turn the adults confessed their love for the little ones. They would express their joy and mysterious love that they have for the children and grandchildren.

I remember visiting my friends who are grandparents and they told me that they have so much love for their grandchildren that they must see them daily otherwise they would feel empty and incomplete for the day. They would just like to hug and kiss them; pour out their love to them.

This is the spiritual gift that God has given to us, Our Father in heaven in so much bigger and greater than us and in this direction we can say that the amount of love He has for us is proportionate to His bigness. If God is immeasurable, surely then His love to us is also immeasurable.

The scripture is full of reminder to us that God is love and He desires the same for us. The scriptures also tell us that because of this love, God is most merciful when His children sinned against Him. We can see how frustrated He was when His children repeatedly turned against Him and rebelled. He had to punish them for their sins but even when He does, He set in place a plan of mercy and redemption for His people.

As we have seen from biblical history, God did punish but after a time He will restore and forgive. He also gave them a choice and a chance to turn back to Him. Even when the people did not repent, God’s love will lead Him to be merciful and forgiving. He will gather His children back like a mother hen gathers her chicks.

In today’s understanding many people would not be able to understand this analogy of the mother hen gathering her chicks. For those who are older and have grown up with experience in rearing chicken, the mother hen will call all her chicks to her and come under the shelter of her wings when rain breaks out or when she sensed danger around her.

The mother hen would call and all the chicks would respond and run to hide under the protection of her wings. This again illustrates the love of God that He has put into all living creatures.

In my garden, I see many birds that are flying and resting around and I see the love that they have for each other. We are in winter now but in spring, we will soon see the little chicks coming out and learning to fly with their parents which would be patient and loving to guide and teach them.

All these remind us of the love that God has for all His creation whether it is man or the animals. God is love and He tells us that we must also love each other as He has loved us.