We Thrive When We Love God
OPENING PRAYER:
God, help us to focus in and drown out the noise today as we seek to know and love you more.
READ:
“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” Mark 12:28-30 (NIV)
REFLECT:
As we take time to reflect on Jesus’ mission for us and how the Father and the Holy Spirit equip us to carry out that mission, it’s vital that we remember our priorities and set our hearts right. Jesus spoke very clearly to this throughout his earthly ministry and reminds us in Mark 12 that loving the Lord is the most important thing. This is part of our mission--to love like he did.
APPLY:
Loving God first means that we must watch ourselves and ensure that we are not serving other masters (money, influence, beauty, popularity, etc.). If we let other things get in the way, our love gets side-tracked, and we all suffer. We should always be on the lookout to build the love that we have for God.
As we seek to love God above all else, we must be intentional about our efforts. Loving him is just like any relationship we want to nurture --- we must spend more time with him, learning who he is and what/who he loves.
This also means that we should take time to focus on what God has done for us and naturally want to sing his praises. Our love for God should overflow in our lives and lead to action as well as testimony. When you are deeply loved and love deeply in return, you want to shout it from the rooftops. In the same way, we can see our love for God play out in the way that we testify to his goodness, share our own stories, and how we want to love others out of that abundance of love.
CLOSING PRAYER:
God, we praise you for the love you have shown us, and we seek to return even a portion of that love. Help our hearts open to you and others as we grow in our relationship with you.
WORSHIP: