Glad You're Here: A 5-Day Study by Craig Cooper and Walker HayesSample

Genuine friendships are built on love. When you love someone, you give.

God loves us, and in His love, He gives.

Acts 17 says that God “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything (else) (Acts 17:25, ESV). Everything we have is a gift from Him. The breath you just took, the life you now have, the food you have eaten today (and will eat later), the roof over your head, the device you are using to read this devotional. It’s all a gift from above.

James 1 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17, ESV). John the Baptist said, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27, ESV), and the apostle Paul communicated, “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV). Everything we have is a gift from God.

The most well-known verse in all of the Bible speaks of God’s loving generosity: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, emphasis mine).

God loved us, and in His love, He gave us the greatest gift, the gift of His only Son to live a perfect life on our behalf and to die a substitutionary death on the cross in our place, so that we could be forgiven of our sins and be granted the gift of eternal life. There is no greater love than this! “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, ESV).

Sacrificial love is the highest form of love. That’s the kind of love God has shown to us in sending His Son and Jesus has shown to us in laying down His life on our behalf, and that’s the kind of love Jesus wants us to show for our friends. True friendship requires sacrificial love. We give of our time, our attention, even our possessions when needed, even our very selves to love our friends.

Ultimately, any sacrificial love we show for one another on this earth is simply an echo of the kind of love God has for us in giving us His Son, and Jesus has for us in laying down His life for us. Pray for that God would fill your heart with that kind of love for your friends, and then look for creative opportunities to give to meet the needs of your friends and to bless them with God’s great love.

“So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” (1 Thessalonians 2:8, ESV)