THEME:
As you continue to explore what it means to be a godly Christian citizen, the Bible teaches that you can learn to love in a way that stretches you beyond human capability and may even seem unusual to the world. This is God’s desire for you; it is his command. You will find great peace and fulfillment when you learn to love in God’s way.
KEY SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 22:34-40
Matthew 22:34-40
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Learning to love God with all of your being is the only way to find joy and peace
Matthew 22:37
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Jeremiah 2:13
My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Matthew 22:38-39
This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Learning to love God’s way may be contrary to the priorities of the masses
Mark 2:15-17
And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 22:40
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Learning to love God and my neighbors sums up my duty as a Christian
1 Corinthians 13:1
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
The world is desperately looking for someone who is willing to love God’s way
You can be the one who helps change someone’s life by loving God’s way