“We love because he first loved us” (1Jn. 4:19). “Your love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). “All that you do, do in love” (1Cor.16:14). “Perfect love drives out fear” (1Jn. 4:18). “Love never fails” (1Cor.13:8). “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love” (Gal.5:6).
Heavenly Father, I can certainly think about you without thinking of Jack Miller, but I cannot think about Jack and not think of you. No one taught me more about the Gospel, your love, and life than Jack. One of the most memorable things he taught me was to “mount a love offensive.”
That is, (to paraphrase Jack), “when you feel like you are being unfairly treated, criticized, or sinned against—instead of getting defensive or getting even, repay harshness with humility and criticism with kindness. Mount a love offensive. The cross revealed the magnitude of your need, and the greatness of your Father’s love for you. Let your Father’s love determine how you respond to others.”
Help me… free me. This isn’t usually my first response, or even my most desired response. By the work of your Spirit, grant me a Gospel-heart and thicker skin—not like an armadillo, but like one of your beloved children, beginning each day putting on the garments of grace.
Father, “set apart and dearly loved by you, I want to dress myself with your compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. I want to bear with others, and forgive them as you have forgiven me. And as my most basic layer and top layer, I want to put on your love” (Col.3:12-14). May it be, most loving, Abba, and increasingly so. So Very Amen.