Student Ministry - July 2021
Dear Church Family,
I hope you are having a great summer so far! When you read this, our students will have just returned from camp where we learned about how to be a light in the darkness. We have also already been on an adventure in Marengo Cave and had a pool party together. But while we were together, we took some time to do the most important thing: we looked to God’s word and learned about what He wants the most from us. And so in this article, I want to tell you about the topic we are discussing in the Student Ministry this summer during our events.
For our devotions and discussions this summer, we are asking the question, “what does God want most from us, and what does that look like?” The answer to this question is clearly described in the Bible. But when someone asks you that question, it can be hard to know exactly how to answer it. The question asking “what does God want most from us?” is really just another way to ask, “what is the greatest commandment?”. If you recognize the latter question, then you remember when Jesus was asked that very question in Matthew 22:36. Jesus’ answer tells us exactly what God wants most from us: Love for God. That is what God wants from us the most, love for Him. But Jesus goes farther than what He was asked and gives the second most important thing that God wants from us too. And that is to love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is what God wants. He wants us to love Him first, and then to love other image bearers of God just as much as we love ourselves. This means self-love over others-love is sinful. And it means that love for anyone or anything over love for God is sinful. It is a direct rebellion against God to love something more than Him, and to love yourself to the neglect of your neighbor. This is an intense statement, but what is more is that Jesus also goes on to say that all of the Law is based on these two truths. That’s huge!
So what does this look like and how do we do it? How do we love God and others if this is what He wants most from us? Well, the students and I have been going to the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 to see how this plays out. I would encourage you to go read Exodus 20:1-17 and see how the first four commandments clearly explain how to love God above all else, and how the last six commandments clearly explain how to love your neighbor.
This seems so great and simple! All we have to do is love God and others as described in the Ten Commandments! But that is actually the problem. We are born loving ourselves first . We all fail daily at living out what God wants most from us. We all fail to love God and others above ourselves. We are all rebels against God’s design for life. (If you are not convinced of this, please read Matt. 5:21-48 and Rom. 3).
So if that is true, then what are we to do to have life? The answer is to trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior. He is the one who takes away our sins, cleanses us within, and gives us new hearts by the Holy Spirit to love God (Psalm 51:10-12, Rom. 5:5-11, Eph. 1:7-14). As we trust in Jesus, we are given power both to want to love God and to actually love God in how we live. So if your love for God is cold, do what the Bible says and turn to Jesus. He will clean you and give you a renewed love for the Lord and a zeal to live it out.