Love – Worship
“God is love.” -1 John 4:8
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” -Jesus (John 13:34)
God is love. In Jesus God perfectly showed His perfect love for all people. By giving the Holy Spirit to live within God’s people, we have God’s love in us, shaping us, and flowing out through us.
Worship is a form of this love. When we are connected to God in a loving relationship, God takes over our hearts, and we grow in our love for God and for others. It’s like we are the spokes of a wheel, and God is the hub. The closer we get to the hub, the closer the spokes come together. Likewise, the closer we grow to one another, the closer we grow to God. (Illustration used by Dorotheus of Gaza in the 6th century) This is how Love (God) works.
Grow – Connect
God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ….By speaking the truth with love, we are to grow up in every way into Christ.” -Ephesians 4:13-15
God has created us for a purpose. God’s plan for us is that we be more than we are right now. Following Jesus means changing and growing and becoming more like Him, and more the way God designed us to be. This is something we do, and, at the same time, it is something that the Holy Spirit does within us.
We grow through healthy, holy habits. We grow through activities we do to deepen our faith in God. Some we do on our own, and there are some we do together. We need to be connected to others and activities that keep us growing spiritually.
Serve – Outreach
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” -1 Peter
4:10
God gives us the Holy Spirit to live within us, changing us from the inside out. The Holy Spirit gives us interests, abilities, and grace, and it is through these that we serve God by serving others. What are the gifts the Holy Spirit has worked into you? We are gifted, you know. God calls us to use our resources (interests, abilities, time, possessions, etc.) to make the world a better place. God calls His people to invest in others.
One of the best ways to show love to someone who is a parent is to help her kids. Same with God. One of the best ways to show love to God is to help God’s kids. That’s all the other people around you. We are all called to invest into others what God has first invested into us.
