The Power of Love

If we understood in a very real way that God loves us, how would we respond? Would we return His love? It’s a vital question. When a lawyer came to Jesus and asked Him which command is the greatest, Jesus answered that it is to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. He added that there is a second equal part: loving your neighbor as yourself. Everything Jesus commands of us, He supplies.

As we learn that God loves us with no strings attached, we will return that love to Him. Within the security of God’s love, we are free to begin to understand who we are even with all our sins and failures and to change through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The lessons for this quarter are based on the Great Command (Matt. 22:37-39). In Lesson 1, we look at the life that God designed us to live. In Lessons 2 through 4, we learn the source of love and how to love God. In Lessons 5 through 9, we uncover the hidden part of the Great Command (“as we love ourselves”), consider how we define ourselves, how God identifies us, and how we grow in the church and following the ways of Jesus. Lessons 10 through 13 explore the extent of the love that God expects of his people and how that love is expressed with different groups of people.