Romans 12:12 - Reid Ferguson

Rom. 12.12d - Contribute to the needs of the saints,and seek to show hospitality.

God loves to be believed. God loves to be trusted. God loves to be depended upon. And lastly, God loves to be -imitated. Or maybe a better way to say would be that He loves to be demonstrated through the lives of those who He created to be His image bearers. For ego's sake? Not on your life. For love's sake. For He has nothing higher,nothing sweeter, nothing more perfect, nothing more glorious, wonderful, satisfying, blessed, good or beneficial to give - than Himself. He is the very highest of all goods. God so loved the world He GAVE, His only begotten Son.The measure of His love is seen in the value of His gift.And when you and I bear His image, speak His words in His honor, do His actions as though He were here, and live under His Spirit's influence so that He has the most opportunity to be manifested, it is the highest possible good He can do to His creature - man. He loves to being imitated.So it is the text today shows us one of the key ways to love Him is by making Him known. Which, if you think about it, is also the way we can love people best. For what better thing can we do for any man than to expose them to the Living, loving, saving God of Heaven? And how has He manifested Himself most clearly and fullyto date? In the person of His Son - Christ Jesus. And in what way did Jesus' make the Father known? Was it not in mercy? It is in John 5, when Jesus heals the lame man on the Sabbath that He declares: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." And it is in this precise context that He then exhorts us to: "let yourlight shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." This, via the media of contributing - sharing in, the needs of the saints. The word for "contribute"here being the word for fellowship - koinonia. To take part in other's needs -especially those of the saints.In seeking to show them hospitality - a resting andrefreshing place in the midst of their tiring journey through this barren, sin-cursed world. In other words - to act like the Father. Every Father delights to see His children taking up the attitudes and passions that are closest to his own heart. You that are parents, how do you describethat sense of joy when you see your own children adopt right values and set godly priorities and live with hearts inflamed with love for Christ? Amazing isn't it? How much more the Heavenly Father? How much more the one who loved us so that He gave His Son, to see His children walking in His truth, having the same mercy toward those in need, caring for lost souls, moving to show that there is a remedy for sin's effects, though the testimony of demonstrating the love of God? Isn't this a solid, deafening statement of love? Doesn't it speak to Him of how we admire and affirm and delight in pleasing Him? Isn't that loving Him? When we trust His example so, that we adopt it as our own. God loves to be imitated in this way. God is love. So says 1 John 4.8. He pours it out as His nature. And when we pour it back, can there possibly be a more intimate bond formed? We love Him because He first loved us. But the circuit is only complete when we do in fact love Him. A circuit which finds the love of God not only manifested to us, or by us, but flowing freely through us. That dear one - is the abundant life.-- Blessings: Reid Dulcius Ex Asperis

www.responsivereiding.com "Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish,let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." -C.H. Spurgeon

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Rom. 11:36 (ESV)

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