Devotionals for September 26, 2022
Pack the Park is coming up on Saturday, October 15 at 10:00am! Come and support this event!
READ
JOHN 15:12
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no
greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
MATTHEW 22:34-40
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no
greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
MATTHEW 22:34-40
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
REFLECT
The Bible says that God is love. This is perhaps the best way to most fully yet succinctly sum up who God is. And we have experienced this love firsthand, or at least we’re able to if only we receive it, in so many ways. Most primarily by God himself in human form, Jesus, sacrificing himself for us unto death. Laying down his life for those whom he described as “his friends”, us. What a beautiful truth. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so.” But what else does the bible say? Now go and resume your life, pick up from where you left off knowing God loves you and call it a day? No, the intended response is, of course, love in return. No other commandment surpasses this one in greatness or importance. The only one that comes close is the one that demands that we love those whom he made in his image—others like us. To only focus on how much God loves us, and not endeavor to love him with our whole selves in return, is to veer off the path God intended for us to walk eternally, right at the start. We don’t just receive God’s love, we return it to the sender.
APPLY
Q: What are the two greatest commandments? (Matthew) What is the greatest way to express our obedience to those commandments? (John)
Q: Do you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind? In what ways do you regularly show this love?
Q: Recently, in what ways has your love for God, overflowed into love for your neighbor? How do you need to love your neighbor today?
Q: Do you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind? In what ways do you regularly show this love?
Q: Recently, in what ways has your love for God, overflowed into love for your neighbor? How do you need to love your neighbor today?
SING
PRAY
"Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy."
I love you, God, with all that I am. Thank you for how you have loved me! Help to see all the extravagant ways in which you have loved and continue to love me each day. And help us to respond to your love by loving you in return and help that love to overflow to my family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers today. In Jesus’ name, amen.
I love you, God, with all that I am. Thank you for how you have loved me! Help to see all the extravagant ways in which you have loved and continue to love me each day. And help us to respond to your love by loving you in return and help that love to overflow to my family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers today. In Jesus’ name, amen.