The Golden Chain - Thursday February 18, 2016
And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues. Colossians 3:14 (PHILLIPS)
I lost my heart in Romania. It was just a tiny, flat, gold one attached to the end of a chain on a bracelet. I knew it might fall off again, but I really liked wearing the bracelet a Chinese friend had given me. I noticed the heart's absence a day after an afternoon at a park in Brasov with our grandsons Coen and Lewis. Oh well.
Losses will occur in our lives as Christians, but I think of a verse out of the Phillips translation of the New Testament I discovered in high school. For me the contemporary language was like what The Message was to my kids' generation. "Is that the Bible?" I thought, shocked. "Then I want to read it!" Listen to these beautiful verses: "As, therefore, God's picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues" (Colossians 3:12-14 (PHILLIPS); italics mine).
"Love is the golden chain ..." The older I get, the truer that rings. I'm not espousing the Beatles' philosophy – "Love is all you need" – we need a lot more than that: faith, salvation, cleansing, virtue, knowledge… (Look at 2 Peter 1:5-8.) But the thing itself – the over-arching, underlying goal of our instruction – is love. God is love. Christ loved us and gave Himself. So whatever my losses, if God is working His love deeper and deeper into me, all is well.
Submitted by:
Dotty Vanderhorst
Cornerstone Community Church
Overland Park, Kansas
One-Year Reading Plan:
Leviticus 6:1-7:27
Mark 3:7-30
Psalms 37:1-11
Proverbs 10:3-4
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SCRIPTURE REFERENCB-ES: Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible B) The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy, Bible, New International Version, copyright B) 1973, 1978, 1984 by InternaB-tional Bible Society; (NKJV) are from New King James Version B) 1982 by Thomas Nelson; (NLT) are from the New Living Translation, B) 1996, Tyndale House Publishers; (ESV) are from English Standard VersionB., B) 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers; (TM) are from The Message B) 1993 by NavPress Publishers.