Listen up, little ones
Listen for the word love.
Reading
Matthew 22:34–40—Love God and Your Neighbor
Optional Reading
Amos 4:1-11
Keys for kids
- The greatest commandment is to love God with your all.
- We love God because he first loved us.
- Because we love God, we obey him.
Questions
- What is the greatest commandment?
- How did God show that he loves us?
- How do we show God that we love him?
Notes
(See Saturday for authors.)
The first Lord’s Day in my ministry as full-time pastor of Springs Reformed Church I preached about loving God and your neighbor. I said, If I could sum up in a sentence what I hope from you as a congregation in being your pastor, it would be that you love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength, and that you love your neighbor as yourself. That’s still my hope.
Of course, you can only love God because of his great love for you. Christ died for sinners because of God's love for sinners! What is love? Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10 CSB). In response to God’s love, you prove your love for God by keeping his commands.
That was the problem of the prophet Joel’s audience. They claimed to love God but were not obeying his commands. Instead, our attitude should be, “Because of the saving grace of God, I now—imperfectly to be sure, but certainly—desire to love God and desire to demonstrate my love for God by obeying his commands.” And when I fail, I repent. I remember the love of God to me as demonstrated in the gospel. And I resolve again to seek again to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind.
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 97c, 134b
Prayer
- Ask God to help you love him and obey him more.
- Pray for a specific application from yesterday's sermons.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.