Sunday Night Recap
January 22, 2006
Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, he took them back to Deuteronomy 6 saying, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind." So, tonight we asked the question, "how do I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind?"
What are some specific things you can do that show you are loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind? Maybe we need to define those three areas first.
Heart: Sin starts in the heart, so in a sense that is where our actions start. If we are consistently living in sin, then the desire of our heart is consistently selfish. If we are consistently living for the Glory of God, then the desire of our heart is consistently bent toward dying to self. Our actions start in our heart...what we truly desire. That's why it is so important to hide God's word in our heart...it protects us from sin.
Soul: The soul is the foundation of our whole life. Without a soul that is given over to Christ, there is no life. The foundation of everything: your hopes, your dreams, your passions, your feelings, your emotions; will only be surrendered in full love to God if they are ruled by Christ. Christ must first have our innermost being, our soul, before He is Lord of our life...but then He is automatically Lord of our life after our soul is given to him, whether we like it or not.
Mind: So, being that Jesus is Lord of your life if he is savior of your soul, what are you putting into your life, what are you thinking on, what are you dwelling on that displeases the King? If we are to love the Lord God with ALL our mind, we must be aware of our responses, physically and mentally, to others, our habits and where they take us, our surroundings and how they influence us, and surrender it all to the desires of the King.
See, to love someone with ALL that we have, we can't have anything! We give up our rights to our desires and surrender our heart soul and mind to their desires. It's about living completely unselfishly, and that means we have to give up whatever "rights" this world tells us we have:
(You have the right to be an individual, to do what feels good, to be who you want to be, to date who you want to date, to wear what you want to wear, to watch and listen to what you want to watch and listen to, to treat your parents with respect when you feel like it but disrespect them the rest of the time, to cheat on your test because you didn't have time to study, to throw a beer at Ron Artest if you don't like the way he's playing basketball, to speed because "it's only speeding if you get caught", to skip church because your girlfriend/boyfriend isn't going to be there tonight, to act like one person around this group and a completely different person around this group, to refuse to take leadership because "it's someone else's turn", to not sing a song in church because you don't like it or the way the band is playing it, to treat church leadership without respect because you don't agree with their view, to believe that oral sex in the back of a car (or anywhere else for that matter) is not sex, to walk around with a frown on your face all day because you feel like it, to not stand up for truth because you don't want to hurt someone's feeling or be embarrased, to date as many people as possible because "how else are you going to know what you like in a guy/girl", to break the rules whenever you feel like it because "rules were made to be broken")
You don't have ANY of these rights...But here's a right you do have, in Christ:
You have the right to be called a son/daughter of the Living God!
So, stop trying to make Him think that you love Him, and start loving Him...with all that you are and all that you have!
Check out this Haptoon: http://www21.brinkster.com/Haptoon/032.htm
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