March 21, 2022 (Monday)
Pre-Easter Theme: What Jesus Taught Us
Theme for this week: We Can Love God
As we study the teachings of Jesus, we discover that He taught us these truths: God is our loving Heavenly Father who gives us a new beginning in life when we accept His Son as our Savior. By His grace we are “born again.” We can respond to God’s love for us by loving Him, and we soon discover that we can show our love for God by loving others, which automatically becomes a demonstration of our love for God.
Every so often we hear about a philanthropist who has given a fortune to someone on the condition that the person to whom the money was given promise never to reveal the source of his financial fortune. I suppose keeping that promise is possible but it seems to me that the one who receives the gift would find it very difficult indeed not to reveal the name of his benefactor. What a painful experience that would be to seal our lips as people repeatedly ask us to identify our secret helper.
A similar experience would be ours if someone plucked us from the raging waves and saved us from drowning, but made us promise never to tell about it. That would be the one thing that we would want to share–someone saved our life! How could we remain silent?
When God is the source of our blessings, however, he does not ask that we remain silent about His blessing us. In fact He wants us to “go and tell” what great things God has done for us, giving Him all the glory and praise. And so we give our testimonies in words of praise, but the best way we can show our love for God is to love others and help them when possible. When Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment* He said, “Love God and Love your neighbor.” What? The greatest commandment is “Love God” but Jesus attached “Love your neighbor” because the two commandments cannot be separated. In fact, if you stop and think about it, the only way that we can show our love for God is by loving others. Serving others and helping others is the way we show that we love God. It is good to say in our hearts and in our prayers, “Jesus, I love you,” but a better way to say it to Jesus is to bless another human being, sharing the love of Jesus in a tangible way.
Pagans fear their god but Christians love theirs. Why? Because He loves us. Therefore, we are moved from within to love our God and Savior.
I LOVE HIM
(Tune by Stephen Foster)
Gone from my heart the world and all its charms;
Now through the blood I’m saved from all alarms;
Down at the cross my heart is bending low;
The precious blood of Jesus cleanses white as snow.
I love Him, I love Him,
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation on Calv’ry’s tree.
Once I was lost, and ’way down deep in sin;
Once was a slave to passions fierce within;
Once was afraid to meet an angry God;
But now I’m cleansed from ev’ry stain through Jesus’ blood.
I love Him, I love Him,
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation on Calv’ry’s tree.
Once I was bound, but now I am set free;
Once I was blind, but now the light I see;
Once I was dead, but now in Christ I live,
To tell the world around the peace that He doth give.
I love Him, I love Him,
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation on Calv’ry’s tree.
Hear it sung (fast tempo):
Sing it yourself with piano:
*Jesus replied by quoting the Shema–read about the Shema here.