Sermon/Lesson Title

The love we have and show for one another is how we show the world that we are the disciples of Christ.  So is it left to our discretion on how we are to love one another or are there some practical guidelines within the word of God on how we are to go about this?  How do we show this love, do our brothers and sisters in Christ need to know we love them or can we just assume they know it and go on with our lives?

Jesus loved His own to the end and washed their feet (John 13:1–17). The King kneels with towel and basin, showing love that serves, forgives, and endures. Today we measure our hearts by His example: does our love look like His—patient, kind, humble, and faithful—in every relationship?

Love has many sides: discerning, demanding, deliberate. God calls us to love in deed and truth, with holy judgment, conviction, and daily choice. This lesson examines Scripture to shape our hearts and relationships toward His standard. Primary text: 1 John 3:18; Romans 12:9. Lord, teach us to walk in love.

(Genesis 22:2)
God said, “Take now your son… whom you love.” The Bible’s first mention of love appears on Moriah, a father offering his only son. This scene points to God’s redeeming love in Christ and calls us to love Him with all our heart.

God’s Steadfast Love

“Hallelujah” That’s how Psalm 106 both begins and ends. Praise the Lord! This Psalm well illustrates God’s steadfast love for His people in the face of their repeated unfaithfulness.

Text: Psalm 106

Jesus taught a great lesson about love when He answered a question posed by a Pharisee.  (Matthew 22:34-40)  But what does loving my neighbor look like?  An Old Testament passage helps us see what it looks like. 

 Text:  Leviticus 19:9-18

Clifton Fadiman, in The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, tells a story about Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian-born novelist who achieved popular success with his novels Lolita (1955), Pale Fire (1962), and Ada (1969).  One summer in the 1940s, Nabokov and his family stayed with James Laughlin at Alta, Utah, where Nabokov took the opportunity to enlarge his collection of butterflies and moths.  Fadiman relates: Nabokov’s fiction has never been praised for its compassion; he was single-minded if nothing else.  One evening at dusk he returned from his day’s excursion saying that during hot pursuit near Bear Gulch he had heard someone groaning most piteously down by the stream. “Did you stop?” Laughlin asked him. “No, I had to get the butterfly.”  The next day the corpse of an aged prospector was discovered in what has been renamed, in Nabokov’s honor, Dead Man’s Gulch. While people around us are dying, how often we chase butterflies!