Message summary:  Do you know God’s love today? You can be assured it is entirely reliable!

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“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16).

We work as chaplains with Kleen-Rite, a company that sells supplies to the car wash industry. Coincidentally, I recently visited with a man who operates a car wash in Ohio and he told me they ordered supplies from Kleen-Rite.

This company really wants to promote their reliability to customers and, as a reinforcement to their staff, ordered t-shirts with "Reliable" as their theme as seen in our lead photo today.

Humanly speaking regardless of whether it be a company or an individual reliability is a very desired trait. Have you ever dealt with an unreliable company? In the private sector where there's healthy competition an unreliable company would soon fail.

We also value reliable people in our lives and should all seek to be reliable. It's a required quality for church leadership. Paul wrote to Timothy in regard to passing on the faith, "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others" (2 Timothy 2:2). That's a pattern we do well to maintain in each generation.

The dictionary defines reliability as “dependability or trustworthiness”. The reliable object consistently functions as designed. The reliable person can be depended upon because he or she is trustworthy. When something or someone is reliable we generally take that quality for granted but in dealing with unreliability that faulty trait will rise to the surface either quickly or in due time. In our interface with both people and machines reliability is necessary and is a genuine blessing.

But today let us especially consider God's reliability. Today’s Scripture text is a wonderful verse to memorize and hide deep in our hearts: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us". The Amplified Bible elaborates, “And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us”.

What a tremendous blessing that we can know and rely on God’s love. Sometimes it is very evident to me. At other times it is an invisible expression. Sometimes I would like to see Him do things differently and there are times I even give Him ideas on how to do it. But there is a deep abiding assurance as we come to regularly rely upon His steadfast, unconditional love that is altogether reliable.

Do you know God’s love today? Are you relying (trusting, believing) on that love? A.W. Tozer wrote: “God’s love is measureless. It is more: it is boundless. It has no bounds because it is not a thing but a facet of the essential nature of God. His love is something He is, and because He is infinite, that love can enfold the whole created world in itself and have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds beside.”

Be encouraged today!  Hebrews 3:13

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber