Apr 30, 2026 – Love
Strolling the streets of Vicenza, Italy
Power – Matthew 5:37 – “Let your Yes be simply Yes, and your No be simply No; anything more than that comes from the evil one.” Joyce tells us about the importance of giving, and standing behind, our word, “There was a time not too far in the past when a person’s word was his honor; to not keep one’s word was unthinkable. When people made a business deal, a twenty-page contract covering every minute thing imaginable was not necessary. They simply came to an agreement and shook hands. Having integrity requires you to be honest and do the right thing in every situation…. Even if nobody in the whole world kept their word, you should still keep yours, simply because it is the right thing to do.”
Simpson – “Love believeth all things” (1 Cor. xiii. 7). Simpson writes about the simple beauty of God’s deep love for us, “Beautiful is the expression in the Book of Isaiah which reflects with exceeding sweetness the love of our dear Lord. He said, ‘They are My people, children that will not lie; so He was their Savior.’ They did lie, but He would not believe it. At least He speaks as if He would not believe it in the greatness of His love, because they were His people.” Sounds like how a mother sometimes sees the sneakiness of her child but believes the best in him and offers to help him find a better way.
Streams – Cowman explains the warning in the dream from Genesis 41:4, 7 – “It is possible for the best years of our life, the best experiences, the best victories won, the best service rendered, to be swallowed up by times of failure, defeat, dishonor, uselessness in the kingdom…. S. D. Gordon has said that the only assurance of safety against this tragedy is ‘fresh touch with God,’ daily, hourly. The blessed, fruitful victorious experiences of yesterday are not only of no value to me today, but they will actually be eaten up or reversed by today’s failures, [I’m thinking of how a good day with a toddler can be followed by a tantrum day with a toddler leaving the loving parent wondering if the child will ever be presentable in society] unless they serve as incentives to still better, richer experiences today.” One can hope that children (and their parents) learn from the good behaviors to help with the bad behaviors. “’Fresh touch with God,’ by abiding in Christ, alone will keep the lean kine and the ill favored grain out of my life.”
Utmost – 1 Corinthians 13:4 (RV) – “Love suffereth long, and is kind….” Again, I think of how most parents love (and suffer for) their children, and as God does for us. Chambers shares these thoughts, “Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, that is, it bursts up in extraordinary ways…. The springs of love are in God, not in us…. If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes naturally. In looking back we cannot tell why we did certain things, we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us.”
