God is love
For your own sake, be very careful to love the Lord your God. ~ Joshua 23:11 (CEB)
God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. ~ 1 John 4:16 (GNT)
KEY IDEA:
Make love of God your top priority if you want the love of God to live through you.
PRAYER:
Lord, thank you for loving me -- even when I am so unloveable. I want to be like you but I'm not all that careful about loving you. I am easily distracted by other things which I love instead of you. Help me to turn around and focus on loving you. I'm going to start my days by saying "God is love" just to remind myself of what I'm doing. Amen.
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase — my own freestyle biblical adaptation — somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
