The Strong Bond of Love

Heavenly Father, I praise You for today. I praise You for the safe trip to work. I praise You for being free to go to church and worship with fellow believers and sinners alike. I praise You for the time with my grandchildren and my daughter. I praise You for the time with my wife also. I praise You for the ministry of my son and how You are using him.

Holy Spirit Paul wrote: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:37-39] You love me when I am unlovely. You love me when I was still a sinner. You love me though I have imperfections and I rush to speak. You love me unconditionally. I have failed to always love You, yet you still love me.

The power of Your love is greater than anything I could ever comprehend. I don’t fully understand or appreciate the love that would lead Your innocent unblemished son to go to the cross, die bearing my sins, going to hell and freeing the keys of hell, rising again, defeating death, and then go to heaven to sit by the Father and be our constant advocate and high priest. There is nothing You do not know about me, and there is nothing I can not talk to You about.

Holy Spirit as I live each day learning to die out to my desires, my pride, my selfishness, and give You all of me to be used by You. Help me to slowly learn and comprehend the love needed to show to others so that I am learning to love You as You love me. Cleanse me from all unrighteousness and make me a new creation that can serve You with a love that is unlimited, uncompromising, and undeterred by the lack of love of others.

Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in

Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. In Jesus Name Amen. (Ephesians 1:15-23; 2:1-10)