"40 Days of Love" in American Sign LanguageSample

God’s Love Covers Your Sin
By Rick Warren

“Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8 NLT)

The first law for learning how to really love God and other people is that the best use of life is love. There are two more reasons why you need to make learning how to love your life purpose.

First, love compensates for your sin. The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:8, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins” (NLT).

The love of Jesus Christ covers your sins and gives you the power to let other people off the hook. You’ve been forgiven, and you can forgive others.

King David from the Bible was not exactly a perfect guy. In fact, he blew it a lot. He lied. He cheated. He stole another guy’s wife. He committed adultery. He even had a guy murdered to cover up his sin!

But when David blew it, he admitted it quickly and repented. He didn’t always do what was right, but he sought after the Lord and wanted to do what was right. God called David a man after his own heart.

How could God say that about a man like David? Because it’s more important for you to love God with all your heart than for you to be perfect. Do you love God with all your heart? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Doing so will cover a multitude of sins.

Second, love reverberates forever.

You need to learn that what matters right now are relationships. In fact, the Bible says life without love is worthless and wasted: “No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love” (1 Corinthians 13:3 MSG).

So why do relationships get the short end of the stick? If we know it’s really about love, why don’t we have time for the people we love? Because we’re busy. We give first-class allegiance to second-class causes and start skimming on our relationships.

But nothing can take the place of love. Life is not about achievement or balanced schedules, or recognition. It’s about love. Don’t let busyness cause you to forget that.

Talk It Over

What does it mean to love God with “all your heart”?

In what ways have your relationships suffered because of busyness?

God’s love will cover your sin, but what do you need to repent of to truly seek after God’s heart?