Devotion for the verse of the month: August 2018
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
-1John 4:416b
This is the verse that accompanies us through the month of August 2018. Living in the Love is living in God and God in us. When one reads the previous verses, one comes to notice that there are three motions, being summed up in this particular verse.
When on looks at Verse 9 just like the beginning of our verse it is God who begins the motion by sending his only Son as a sign of God’s Love. John makes it clear to us Humans that we can not love God from our own strength but that God gifts us his Son in our hopeless situation, so we can be reconciled to him. So his love can reach us.
The Second motion that takes place, where we are. It gives Love an address, it gives God an address. In Verse 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. The address is where Love takes place, where love is shared because we recog-nise that we are loved. We can not help but share it. As the monk, Bernard of Clairvaux, Wrote:
“The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself … Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare … You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God.”
In the time when we know what happens when dams are not full and how critical for the people that the dams fill up. In a similar the author of 1 John encourages us to join in on this Cycle. To remain in God and be filled up, so we can pour out Gods love in our en-counters. To remain in the Love of God, so We can Love God. This dear friends is the third motion.
Let us Join in on motions this Cycle, to fill up our Dams. And let the Love of God pour out in our city.
-Matome Sadiki
