As you head off to your church services this morning, allow Jesus’ Great Commandments to provide you insight on two questions you can ask while you spend time with your church family. Jesus taught:
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
A First Great Commandment Question
What can I learn from God through the Scriptures this morning?
Our command is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. With this in mind, in order to fulfill this command, you need to know about God’s character, His passions, and His glory. Therefore, as you go to your church services, go with the explicit purpose of asking what you can learn from God as your pastor preaches the Scriptures. Seek to learn. Listen for the connection your pastor makes with the text that is chosen.
Let me make a few suggestions for listening:
- If possible, bring a paper copy of your Bible. Although you can follow along fine with a phone or iPad or some other device, a paper copy gives you something to write in. As your pastor makes references to the text chosen, use underlines, circles, arrows, and connecting lines to help you as you go back to study the text later in the day or this week.
- Take good notes. If your church does not provide anything to take notes on, then grab a piece of paper or notebook before you leave the house to take notes. You will recall much more from the message if you will take physical notes as your pastor speaks.
- As you take notes, write down both what the chosen text means and how your pastor makes connections with God, your neighbor, and your life.
- If you happen to join your church family online today, seek to minimize distractions as you watch. As above, seek to follow with pen, paper, Bible, and the goal of learning about God and His goals for your life.
A Second Great Commandment Question
To whom in my church family can I demonstrate love of my neighbor?
This question relates to the second commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. Look around, consider the people you see, ask yourself what you know about those people, and try to determine what you can do to show love to at least one of them. Experiencing and expressing the love of Christ in the church family is of vital importance. God gives us to each other and in this context we experience the greatest expression of God’s love.
Let me make a few suggestions for considering who you might demonstrate your love for your neighbor:
- Using the paper you bring or is provided for you to take notes upon in the sermon, jot down the people you know around you who are in the midst of or have recently gone through suffering. Ask yourself, “How have I demonstrated the love of Christ to these people recently?” “Have I done anything to show them the love Christ extends through their church family?”
- Once you write down a person or two on your list who have gone through suffering, then write one or two ways you can demonstrate love to them. Be creative. Consider what you can write, say, or do that might encourage this other person. Then add a specific plan to do so – be intentional. What day might you do what you thought of doing?
- If you see people around you that you do not know well, then pick one to try to talk to at the conclusion of the service. Before you run off to those that you know well, seek to meet some new person. Write his or her name down and little about him or her so that you will not forget it. Pray for that person by name this week. If you exchange text numbers, then also send them a text to let them know that you are grateful to get to know them better and are praying for them. Next week, look for that person to talk with again to extend the relationship.
- If you are at home for online services today, think through who you normally might sit by at church. You can always start with your life group (small group, Sunday School class, etc). Think through others in your church family that you know are suffering. Do the same things as above – just with the opportunities you have as you social distance.
Go with Intention
As you leave to go enjoy your church family today in worship, ask yourself these two questions. As I mentioned earlier, be intentional. Do not let today pass without using some of your energy to focus on God and your church family. We do not want to read over these two Great Commandments casually; instead, we want to take them seriously for the glory of God and good for His people – our family in Christ.
Image Credit Wendy van Zyl
KevinCarson.com | Wisdom for Life in Christ Together
