GOD’S LOVE

GOD’S LOVE                                   Friday - September 3, 2010

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” – Joel 2:13

In 1964, the Lord put on David Wilkerson’s heart to start a boys' home in Amityville, New York, on Long Island. He recalls: “I truly sensed the Lord was behind this work. Yet, after just a year and a half, state officials put impossibly stringent regulations on the home. They told us we had to have a full-time psychologist on staff, as well as a priest or rabbi if we took in boys who were Catholic or Jewish. We couldn't afford to operate under those restrictions, so we simply shut our doors.
We'd taken in only four boys during the brief time we were open, and after we closed down, I lost touch with them. I've always thought that venture was one of the greatest failures of all time. For more than three decades, I wondered why God ever allowed us to move forward with it.”
In 1999, David received a letter from a man named Clifford. Clifford was one of the four boys that were in the Amityville boys’ home. He wrote about the dysfunctional family he was raised in and how he came to live at the boy’s home. It was at the boys’ home that he gave his life to Christ. 
Clifford concluded his letter saying: "Brother David, that was thirty-five years ago. Now God has called me to preach, and he's moving me into full-time ministry. I found you while surfing the internet. This thank-you has been brewing in me for thirty-five years. I just want to say thank you for caring. I know what the love of God is."

The love of God can find us in any situation and turn failure into glory to God. Today in prayer, praise the Lord for His love and rejoice that Jesus is compassionate towards you. 

"The dying Jesus is the evidence of God's anger toward sin; but the living Jesus is the proof of God's love and forgiveness." - Lorenz Eifert

God’s Word: “"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17