This blog focuses on the second theme of the Prayer Covenant which is Love.
God’s Grace
The first line of the Prayer Covenant prayer addressed God’s grace and love for us. The second line of the prayer addresses our love for God. It reads, By your grace, make knowing, loving and obeying you my highest priority. We are not thanking God for his grace; we are appealing to God for his grace that will empower us to love him. He must exercise his grace to turn our hearts to him. When he does, there is something deep within us that begins to long for God. It is the inner work of God’s Spirit, which all God’s children have. We experience a divinely given desire to love him.
The scriptures are filled with people who have been touched by God’s grace and who are then freed to love and desire him. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirst for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Reads Psalm 63:1.
God’s Love
God’s love is a steadfast, perfect and pursuing love. His love is in us, through us and over us. The LORD is gracious and compassionate and rich in love. Paul says it this way in Ephesians 3:17-19:
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
It is not easy to comprehend God’s love for us; but when we do, we overflow with His fullness and His love overflows in and through us. We love God because He first loved us. We have been called to love. Mark 12:30 reads, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Prayer
Let us pray. Father God, we long to love you and live daily in your presence. Stir up a fresh desire in our hearts for you. As the deer pants for water may our souls pant for you. May you alone be the desire of our hearts. In Jesus name, amen.
