Sept.03.04: Light for the Day - "Love in The Home"

-- Psalms 42:8 
By day the LORD directs His love, at night His song is with me -
a prayer to the God of my life.

-- 1 John 4:11,12
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one  another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, 
God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

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"Love in The Home"

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place,
but have not love, I am a housekeeper--not a homemaker.
If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements,
but have not love, my children learn cleanliness--not godliness.

Love leaves the dust in search of a child's laugh.
Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window.
Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk.
Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.

Love is present through the trials.
Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.
Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child,
then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.
Love is the key that opens salvation's message to a child's heart.

Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection.
Now I glory in God's perfection of my child.
As a mother, there is much I must teach my child,
but the greatest of all is love.

-- Author Unknown

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-- Proverbs 22:6 
Train up a child in the way he should go, 
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

-- Matthew 22:37-40
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: 
"‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

-- 1 John 4:18,19
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, 
because fear has to do with punishment. 
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.

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-- 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, 
love is kind. 
It does not envy, 
it does not boast, 
it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, 
it is not self-seeking, 
it is not easily angered, 
it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. 
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; 
where there are tongues, they will be stilled; 
where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. 
But the greatest of these is love.

-- Romans 5:8 
But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: 
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.