Love, Love, Love: Part 1 - "Heart, Soul, Strength"

This Sunday, Rob Lea brings us the talk in the latest of our EBC Online services. 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.
 
Readings:

Mark chapter 12 verses 28 - 31

‘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. ‘The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Romans chapter 12 verses 1 - 2 (The Message)

‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.’



 

Prayer & Reflection

Father God we thank You for Jesus’ clear and unambiguous command to love You with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Jesus we thank you for Your graphic, soul-stirring example of exactly what that means when You died on the cross.
We yearn to grow more like You, but we know that in our own strength we will fall short of that aspiration, so we pray that Holy Spirit You would fill us with supernatural power to help us to love God totally.
Lord God, would You also fill us with a passion for Your word and for prayer, so that we can know You more intimately and love You more deeply.
We ask this in the precious name of Jesus.
AMEN




Questions to Consider

1. Can you recite the EBC ‘Purpose Statement’? What is the function of a purpose statement within an organisation?
2. Can you explain in your own words what it means to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength?
3. Is it really possible to love God in the way that Jesus suggests – totally?
4. Are you eager and highly motivated to study God’s Word?  Do you intentionally and purposefully read your bible every day, and are you familiar with the scriptures that reveal what God’s grace and love has done for you through Jesus? If your answer is no to these questions, are you prepared to make changes that will give a “yes” answer?
5. Are you eager to pray, and do you regularly thank God for all that he has done for you? Again, if the answer is no, what changes in your lifestyle can you make, to ensure closer, regular and intentional contact with God?
6. What is it in your life or in God’s creation that makes you sing or shout out, “My God, how great thou art!”