Faith, Hope and Love: Part 3 - Abide in Love

This Sunday, Rob Lea brings us the latest of our short video talks. Once you have watched the video, we encourage you to reflect on the bible text and join us in the prayer that follows below.

To listen to the talk click here.

Reading
 

1 John chapter 4: verses 7 – 14 (NIV)

God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.


Prayer & Reflection
 

Lord God, out of your glorious riches would you strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Jesus may live in our hearts through faith. And we pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all Christians, to grasp how wide, and long, and high and deep is the love of Jesus. Amen.


Questions to Consider

1. Paul said that of the three, faith, hope and love, the greatest was love. What were his reasons for saying that do you think?

2. If you had to rank faith, hope and love in importance to you and your life, what would be first, second and third, and why?

3. In my talk, I said that Jesus is the ultimate example of faithfulness, the ultimate bringer of hope, and the ultimate source of all love. Do you agree with that? Is that true in your life?

4. Without “looking it up”, are you able to repeat from memory, the EBC purpose statement? Is it real and alive in your life – do you apply it?

5. How important is Jesus in your ‘day-to-day’ life? Are you entwined with him? Really? If not, what steps can you take to change that?

6. It has been said that “Everything – Jesus = Nothing.  Nothing + Jesus = Everything.” Do you think that’s true? If yes, why? If no, why?

7. In my talk I said, “At EBC we want to be a people who are known for constantly and consistently talking about the love of Jesus”. If you are a member or regular attender at EBC, do you think that is how we are known? If not, what can you do, what will you do, to make it a reality?

8. Are you familiar with the apostle Paul’s prayer (cited above) in Ephesians 3:16-18? Is it a prayer that you could adapt for your own personal use?

Rob Lea