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How Love Covers Sin

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April 5, 2022

1 Peter 4:8 NIV

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

CONSIDER THIS

After extended negotiations with the Bus Driver of this pilgrimage, it has been determined we are going to need an entire Daily Text series on this matter of Love. My working title for the series—The Doctrine of Love. As for the date, only the Father knows. It may be awhile. We will keep you abridged. For now we will deal with the text at hand.

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

How does love cover over a multitude of sins? 

A story from my childhood comes to mind. One of my early (10 yr old) sophisticated sins happened the day I stole the $20 bill from my mother’s purse. I took it to the back yard, threw it on the ground, walked about ten yards away and then walked back over and picked it up again. After this, I rushed into the house and gleefully reported the good news to my mother. “Look what I found!” My mother, I should say, was no June Cleaver. Although uncertified, she is an accountant’s accountant. It took her approximately thirty seconds to get to her purse and expose the fraud. After pleading guilty I was arrested and put in a holding cell (my room) to contemplate my crimes while awaiting sentencing (when Dad got home). I could feel the fires of hell kindling around me. 

Did I mention the planned fishing trip on the docket for that afternoon? I was crushed. Even the minimum sentencing guidelines would crush that plan if not add weeks of grounding and likely a good old fashioned spanking. Yep kids, that’s how it used to be in the old days.

Dad came in early for lunch that day. Mom and Dad entered my cell for the pre-sentencing conference. Stern discussions ensued around lying, stealing, cheating, fraud, dishonoring parents, and the rest of the Ten Commandments. I had no case, no mitigating circumstances, no excuse—only tears. Then they handed down the sentence: Pardon. The penalty? Time served. My contrition was met with their compassion. My flagrant foul was met with their forgiveness. My tearful transgression was met with compassionate love. Their love covered my sins. And then Dad said, “Let’s go fishing.” (insert mind blown emoji here)

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

I wonder if Peter was thinking about that day on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus forgave his disloyal denials, set him free from his failures, and embraced him with the undeserved favor of grace.

Love covers sin. Your sin, my sin, our sin, a multitude of sins, indeed the sin of the whole world. Love covers sin. We all need constant reminding, and this comes from God as we love each other deeply, in the face of our falls and failures. 

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Do you know this kind of love that surpasses knowledge? Some reading this are sitting in in their cell at this very moment, literally and figuratively, wondering if there is more than they have known. Pardon is only the tip of the iceberg. There is peace, purpose, power, provision, all of it carried in the overwhelming, never ending, unfathomable love of God. 

Wake up sleeper and rise from the dead. . . 

Your turn: 

THE PRAYER

Jesus, you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Your love is better than life. I want to know this love fully even as you fully know me. I want to know it beyond knowledge or a concept. I want to grasp how high and how wide and how deep and how long is your love, which is your bearing of goodness and grace toward us. I want for this love to become my love for others. Holy Spirit, lead me to become this kind of carrier of the love of God. Praying in Jesus’ name, Amen.

THE QUESTION

Where are you on a scale of 1-10 in your own knowing experience of the love of God in Jesus Christ? (10 is highest) Do you believe it is possible for you to love with the love of God? 

For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

Comments and Discussion

4 Responses

  1. I can not rate myself on the scale of experienced love, God’s love being deeper than I can fathom. But I do believe with all my heart the words: Take and eat, this is my body, broken for you; take and drink, this is my blood, shed for the forgiveness of your sins. What greater love could there be than this?

  2. God’s love isn’t quantifiable–at least not by me. Isaiah said it best: “I am undone.” To get a glimpse of the greatness of God’s love we need to see our sin as the horrific rebellion against God that it is and not deny it or trivialize it. Seeing my sin from God’s perspective leaves me undone, like Isaiah in chapter six. Then when love covers my sin with mercy, grace, and the blood of Jesus, I experience undeserved and unquantifiable pardon, peace, purpose, power, and provision and all my heart can do is to continually praise and thank the living, resurrected Jesus!

  3. I am not sure. I had a major experience of knowing God as Holy Love, but learning that reverberated through my life, shattering many established conceptions about myself, including my inherent trust in the Methodist/United Methodist Church. Things have been further complicated by the fact the church landscape has been overwhelmed by contemporary worship while my faith is rooted in the historic traditions of the church. So, the aftermath has been quite the mess, dominated by a knee jerk reaction that I want the local church back that simultaneously fed my faith and holy discontent for 20+ years. Unfortunately, the only thing left of it is the magnificent building it once occupied which is currently occupied by a completely different church with the same name that believes it is carrying on the history of the previous church–as even my daughter who grew up in the previous church says, “What history?’…………………………………

  4. Everyone who has known His Amazing Saving Grace has experienced the fullness of His love at least once. Of course it never ends with that once. We all continue to receive it daily. Even when we feel we are far from it, in bleak or mundane times. It is quite probable in those times we are in fact receiving even more, that is love is working in us the most to protect and guide us. His love is more than just a feeling. It’s a promise that is perfect, eternal, unchanging and undiminishing. We ‘know’ it. We ‘believe ‘ it.
    And of course we ought to be evidence of it. Lights of love to lighten the world. But too often we are mere sparks that occasionally flicker bright then fizzle into darkness. We love inconsistently and in part. Our love is imperfect. Self steps in the way, and we rely on His perfect love to lift us even out of our failure to love. Only He can perfect this in us. This is the goal, being perfected by the Perfect One.
    We rely on Him totally. May his will be done in us. Amen.

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