Day 1 - Sunday Sermon Recap

Welcome to day 1 of our weekly devotional based on last Sunday’s Sermon

Matthew 22:34-40 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

As we saw this past Sunday, here at Family in Christ Church, we exist as living testimonies of God’s redemptive power to spread a passion for His Supremacy in all things by seeking to live for His glory in everything we do. And as a local body of believers here in Columbus GA we aim to fulfill our God given purpose in 3 ways, we aim to do this by loving the Father, building up the Family and multiplying the Family.

This foundation shapes our identity—it is our spiritual DNA. But at the core of it all is our love for the Father. Jesus made it clear that the greatest commandment is to love God with our whole being. Everything we do as a church must flow from this.

Loving the Father is not just about attending church or following religious traditions—it’s about surrendering our whole heart to Him. And in Matthew 22 Jesus summarized the whole law into two commands, love God and love people. However Jesus also said in John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

Jesus’ statement in John 14:15 shows that in Matthew 22 He was really summarizing the whole law into one command, love the Father. Why do we say this? We say this because loving people is the way we love God. When Jesus establishes that the second command is like the first He is saying if you love me you will love what I love and our God loves people. Jesus didn’t separate loving God from loving people. 

And this was because our capacity to love comes from God Himself, who first loved us. As we grow in our understanding of God's immense love for us, demonstrated through Christ's sacrifice, we are empowered to love others sacrificially.

For this reason as we will unpack next Sunday our love for the Father should naturally move us to build up the family as we seek each other’s spiritual growth through intentional discipleship. And then our love for the Father will inevitably produce a love for the lost as we seek to multiply the family by calling all the prodigals back to the Father through the proclamation of the powerful Gospel message.

Today, reflect on how God's love has transformed your life. Ask yourself, Am I loving the Father with my whole heart, soul, and mind? Does my love for God overflow into love for others? And, how can you demonstrate that love to someone in your sphere of influence? Remember, the words of 1 John 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” In other words God becomes visible when we walk in obedience by loving others.