Jul. 19, 2020

Primary Text:  1 John 2:9-11                                    July 18 & 19, 2020

 Last Week’s Teaching:  Genuine Love for Others

 1)  Your Neighbor and You

 Matthew 22:37-40:  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." 

 John 13:34-35:  "A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

 DQ 1) What is the nature of human “fallen love”?

DQ 2) What is agapē love?

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2)  Accepting Yourself

Genesis 1:27:  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 

Psalm 139:13-14:  For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 

DQ 3) Do humans naturally love themselves?

DQ 4) How do we accept and value how God has created us

           without falling into prideful self-love?

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3)  Denying Yourself

John 15:12-13:   My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 

Matthew 16:24-25:  Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

DQ 5) What aspects of ourselves need to be denied to love others?

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 This Week’s Teaching

 1)  Ongoing Choices

 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13:  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails….  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love. 

          DQ 1) In what ways is love made up of choices?

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2)  Dangerous Hatred

1 John 2:9-11:  Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.  Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.  But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

          DQ 2) What are different forms of hatred of our fellowman?

          DQ 3) Do you have any strongholds of hatred toward others?

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3)  Spurred Toward Love

Hebrews 10:23-25:  Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.   Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching. 

DQ 4) In what ways would you like to grow in loving others?

DQ 5) How can you encourage others to be more loving?

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