5th May 2025

5th May 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 1:9-11)


Message (Alan Burke) 


I know someone and they are all about the supplements. In their house if you didn’t know any better you’d think that Holland & Barret had paid for an advertising stand in their kitchen. They take all these things in order to feel better and also because of their vanity as they want to reclaim what they have lost, they want to reverse the effects of ageing. If you have a cupboard filled with supplements that you take religiously every day, maybe you’re swallowing them with a cuppa tea as you read this devotion I’ve got some bad news that what you’re likely achieving is just really expensive pee. What you’d be better doing is focus on eating a balanced nutritious diet but Holland & Barret along with the many other supplement makers don’t want you to believe that and if you don’t believe me ask yourself why your doctor hasn’t prescribed all these supplements to you. This is why you read these devotions obviously for their healthy cynicism. I’ll get to my point, while you probably don’t need the supplements (unless the Dr has prescribed them) there is something that we are deficient in that no amount of supplements we take can do a think about and what we need is God to work. What we are deficient in is love. 


Look what Paul says here, his prayer for the Philippians at the beginning of v9, it is his prayer that love may abound more and more. What most people think of love, how they define it is pure drivel. How do we know what love is, it is by looking to God in Jesus Christ, 1 John 3:16 tells us; By this we know love, that he (Christ Jesus) laid down his life for us. Without Jesus we cannot even begin to comprehend what love is, for the believer we know what love is because of how our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exemplified love towards us. He did that as he laid down his life for us. It is much more than the crucifixion, it is seen from the moment he condescended in the incarnation, that he who was God and was with God in the beginning emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross where he experienced the wrath of a Holy God against sin for us (Jn 1:1, Phil 2:7-8). 


Love in the believer imitates God’s own love for “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:7-8) rather than the drivel that is served up to us by the culture, instead the love we look to is that love which is exemplified in Christ Jesus. Loving doesn’t mean calling their sin good, it isn’t shown by applauding someone sinful lifestyle or saying that our sin doesn’t matter. Love is truthful and to love is to do what is best regardless of the cost. Because of how we have been loved it should motivate and mitigate our actions and one of the hardest teachings of Jesus that came in the sermon on the mount was about love. There in the sermon on the mount, Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, he teaches us to love our enemies for that is what he has done for us, he has shown his love towards we who by our nature his enemies. Can we say we love as we have been loved, is it seen in our actions, in speech in how we are praying? Paul prayed that the church in Philippi would abound more and more, if we are honest we are deficient in love, let us pray and stay one another up to look to Christ and love as we have been loved.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q75 What is forbidden in the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever doth, or may, unjustly hinder our own, or our neighbor’s, wealth, or outward estate.
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