As I went looking for our next devotional about dads, I found this one named “Love Slows Down” by Joël and Jonathan Malm. In a world where we see so much of a desire or need for instant gratification the topic of slowing down is interesting. In a world where everyone is busy and always on the go the topic of slowing down is intriguing. Today’s devotional draws us in with the statement “We were made from love, made for love, and are called to live in God’s love.” Today’s devotional is based on the book “Love Slows Down” by author Joël Malm. Looking to learn more about the book, it speaks to how packed it is with truth, guidance, and spiritual wisdom. This devotional will carry us through a week as it is a 7-day devotional. Its introduction shares how it will help us slow down and trade in anger, anxiety, and hurry for life with God’s love! I’m excited to get to see where we go.
Let’s check out our scriptures for today’s devotional:
‘Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ‘
1 John 4:7-12
God’s Word is alive and active and is sharper than a double-edged sword! Let’s not read it or treat it like it is a dusty old book of stories but rather let’s study it as the Word of God that can and will speak directly into our lives right here and right now.
Let’s be the dads who are filled with love because of our connection to God! Let’s be the dads who are filled to overflowing with love because we are filled with the fountain of life that is Jesus! Let’s be the dads who live out 1 Thessalonians 3:12 where it says: “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” Let’s be the dads who love one another because love comes from God! Let’s be the dads who loves because we have been born of God and we know God! Let’s be the dads who take that love and pour it into the lives of our wives and kids because we know that “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Let’s be the dads who demonstrate love in the ways we think, speak, and act towards our wives, kids, and world around us! God showed His love by being generous! God shows His love by sending “his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” Let’s be the dads who will love our wives, kids, and world around us first! Let’s be the dads emulate our Heavenly Father who “loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Let’s be the dads who take hold of how much God loves us and love one another! Let’s be the dads who reflect God through our lives and point people to Jesus because we live our lives loving others, loving one another! Let’s be the dads who demonstrate that we have Jesus in us, in our hearts, in our lives, by loving so that His love can be made complete in us!
Today’s devotional has been provided by Joël and Jonathan Malm (http://joelmalm.com).
Reading through today’s devotional, here are some takeaways for me:
(check out the devotional on your own too to see if you pick up other nuggets, and please share your findings in the comments)
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Takeaways from Today’s Devotional:
“Made for Love“
- Love – remember the definition of it? Remember what 1 Corinthians 13 tells us about it?
- ‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ‘ — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
- Today’s devotional speaks to how
- Today’s devotional then shares how the realities of life try to rob that from us when it says:
- The good thing is it doesn’t have to be! We all have free will and get to choose!
- So let’s be the dads who are connected to the branch that is Jesus so that we can produce the fruits of the Spirit!
- Put another way, today’s devotional says: “God wants to give you the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.“
- Today’s devotional shares a key for this to become a reality: “slow down and focus on the right things“
- This devotional has just such a purpose to help it be a reality for us!
- Let’s be the dads who are focusing more on God than on the obstacles!
- Let’s be the dads who are focusing more on God than on the threats!
- Let’s be the dads who are focusing more on God than on the challenges!
- Today’s devotional speaks how we can be challenged to slow down as follows:
- Let’s be the dads who want God’s will, God’s purpose, and God’s plan more than our own!
- For many of us what we want, as called out in today’s devotional, is supposed to be getting met by God!
- Let’s be the dads who can wait upon the Lord and allow Him to meet our needs!
- Yes, we may be the dads who want:
- So, let’s choose to allow God to be our provider and for Him to meet these needs!
- We want them because God created us to need them!
- He created us to need them so that He could supply them in and through Him!
- Today’s devotional even goes all the way back to the beginning to demonstrate this when it says:
- So as today’s scripture spoke to us, let’s be the dads who realize and remember that we were created from love, we were created for love, and we are created to pour out love back to God and out to the people He has put in our lives!
- Let’s be the dads who slow down and find our security in God’s love!
- Let’s be the dads who slow down and find our connection in God’s love!
- Let’s be the dads who slow down and find our control and empowerment in God’s love!
- Today’s devotional closes by getting us to pause and reflect on three dreams and hopes!
‘Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ‘
1 John 4:7-12
