Love Is a Struggle – May 2, 2024
Posted on Thursday May 02, 2024

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:19,20

Love Is a Struggle

Daily Devotion – May 2, 2024

Devotion based on 1 John 3:19,20

See series: Devotions

The ancient Greeks considered their stomachs to be the seat of their emotions. It was their way of expressing that emotions come from deep inside us. Today, the bodily organ commonly associated with emotions like love is the heart. We imagine our hearts bursting when they are full of love and breaking when they aren’t. It is interesting that we tend to associate our emotions with bodily organs that are so easily upset and unsettled.

Your love for others is evidence of your faith in God’s love for you. Yet how often don’t you demonstrate the truth of Jesus’ statement when he said, “the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” In your heart, you know that you have not loved your neighbor as yourself or have not loved others as God has loved you. As a result, in your heart, you imagine yourself condemned.

Perhaps it is because we associate love with organs that are so easily upset and unsettled that we imagine ourselves so easily condemned. Thankfully “God is greater than our hearts.” God is not easily influenced by your struggle to love others that his love for you becomes upset or unsettled. He proved his love when he gave his son, Jesus, to pay for those sins that should have condemned you and that can still make you feel condemned. When you feel this way, remember that your forgiveness does not depend on how you feel but on what God has done to save you. Thank God he is greater than our hearts!

Prayer:
Dear heavenly Father, when my heart tries to condemn me, keep me from despair and comfort me in the knowledge that you have forgiven all of my sins, even when I don’t feel forgiven. Amen.