Follow Jesus Through Love
One of the Pharisees, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
-Matthew 22:35-40
How is God calling me to love my neighbor? After living in our current home for 7 years, I still have neighbors whose names I do not know. (I know most of the children’s names, but not their parents.) Jesus used these two as the greatest commandments: love God and love your neighbor. “All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” If we do these two things well, we can be assured that we are obeying all the laws of God.
Loving our neighbor as ourselves means many different things but the first and fundamental thing I believe is that we are called to know one another. Loving someone means making time for them. Loving someone means making sacrifices for the benefit of the other. Loving your neighbor means meeting their needs. We cannot meet needs we know nothing about. We cannot care for one another when we don’t even know each other’s names.
God may be asking you to follow in engaging and connecting with your neighbors deeper this fall. However you feel called, whether it is a physical neighbor on your block, or a stranger in the grocery store, God can use you to love your neighbor… when we follow Jesus.
This year we are using a new Christian Education curriculum called, “Follow Me” as a framework for our preaching and teaching throughout the church. This desire for a consistent story and message through all ages will hopefully provide for engaging conversations and challenging spiritual practices for us to embark on together. We will also use the Great Ends of the Church as a framework for these themes and passages.
Please join us in worship this fall as we learn more about saying yes to Jesus’ request, “Follow Me.”
Regular worship services have resumed:
8:30am Contemporary Worship
9:45am Christian Education Hour
11:00am Traditional Worship
You, O Lord, are the one who calls us to come and follow. Forgive our blindness to your people in need, our deafness to your creation groaning for relief, our hearts hardened against the new thing you are doing. Teach us to pray, teach us to listen, teach us to serve, teach us to follow you wherever you are going… Help us, O God, to know you so well that we cannot help but love you, and to love you so much we cannot help but serve you, sharing your good news in every place, for it is in doing your will that we find perfect freedom. Amen.
