What
is the strongest force in all creation?
God?
No, God is a person not a force.
Sin?
No, through Jesus’ death and resurrection sin is overcome.
Darkness?
No, light overcome darkness.
Love
is the strongest force in all creation.
What
does Jesus say about how we are to love God?
Mark
12:30
You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind and with all your strength.
We
are to love God with all of who we are and all we possess, our will, our
emotions, our intellect, and our bodies. There is nothing about us that should
not love God.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving God with all that we are and all we
have.
How
do we demonstrate our love for God?
John
14:23-24
Jesus
answered him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will
love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not
love Me does not keep My words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the
Father’s who sent Me.”
We
show God that we love Him by obeying His word. God’s word is the Bible and
God’s word is true.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is obeying God’s word and thus showing that we
really love Him.
What
does Jesus say about God loving us?
John
3:16
For
God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes
in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God
loves every person who has ever lived and who will ever live. And according to
Romans 8:38-39 nothing can change that.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving God’s love for us through
establishing a relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior.
John
15:13
Greater
love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus
laid down His perfect, righteous, and sinless life for our imperfect, unrighteous,
and sinful lives. Jesus did that because of His love for us.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving Jesus’ death to pay the penalty for
our sin.
What
is the result of God loving us and us receiving that love?
John
15:9
As
the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Abide in My love.
When
we receive God’s love, we will in very real and practical ways experience that
love and be able to abide or live every day in that love. God’s love is not
just in words but in real actions in our daily lives.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is living daily experiencing God’s practical
love for us.
What
does Jesus say about who we are to love?
Mark
12:31
The
second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other command
greater than these.
We
are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are to be willing to do for
our neighbor what we would do for ourselves. In Luke 10 Jesus tells us that our
neighbor is any other human who has a need. Jesus connects loving God with all
that we are and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. You cannot love God
and not love others.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving others as we love ourselves.
Matthew
5:43-44
You
have herd that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate you
enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
We
are also to love our enemies and those who harm us because of our faith in
Jesus. This is a command that can only be obeyed through the power of the Holy
Spirit in our lives.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving our enemies and those who try to
harm us.
Why
is loving others so essential?
John
13:34-35
A
new command I give to you, that you are to love one another: just as I have
loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that
you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
The
way we love others will be what marks us as a disciple of Jesus. It is our love,
not our morality or our theology, that will show the world that we are
disciples of Jesus.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is recognizing that loving others is what
shows the world that we are Jesus’ disciples.
What
is the strongest force in the world – Loving Like God Loves!
Loving
God and Others and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,
Joe
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