Eight Days a Week, I Loooooove You!!
Nothing destroys our passion for something faster than having it become a chore. When we do something because we have
to and not because we want to it can zap the fun and excitement right out of it. Even our relationship with Jesus doesn’t escape this trend – as much as we might want it to. When we feel like we have to pray, or sing a worship song, or go to church it just isn’t the same as when we do those things because we enjoy doing them. It’s a vicious cycle: we worry that if we don’t do those things, we are bad Christians… and we don’t want to be bad Christians so we feel like we have to pray hard enough and sing loud enough that God will be happy with us and others will think we’re doing a good job. We work so hard at doing these things that we tire ourselves out and our passion goes down to zero.
Would it be any kind of relationship if I only saw my husband for an hour on Sundays? If I said, “Tom, I love you SO MUCH!” but I never thought about him, talked to him, or did anything for him, would he believe me? It’s the same with God! And we know it is… so we feel guilty for not doing our part in the relationship (remember that God is always thinking about us, communicating with us and doing things for us) that we lose our passion.
But how can we break free from that cycle? God doesn’t want our songs of praise if we are only living for Him on Sundays. We need to live for him all hours of every day! Then when we say, “God, I love you SO MUCH!” He will believe us. We start a new cycle: we give our lives to God, our relationship with Him grows, we feel less guilty and more passionate, and it becomes easier to give our lives over to God!
Discussion Questions:
How do you show one another that you care? What new things could you do?
How do you show God that you care about Him? What new things could you do?
Why do you come to church?
This Week’s Challenge:
As a family, look over the last week and remember the times you included God in what you did. How can you keep each other accountable to live for God every day of the week? Take some time talk about why you come to church, and how together you can be the Church from Monday to Saturday. How can you live for God at soccer practice? At school? While grocery shopping? At work?
God really values doing things for other people in His name – in a lot of ways, that is what it means to live for Him! Make a list of at least 5 things you, as a family, will do for others (your neighbours, people you know from school or work, etc.)
Things To Check Out:
NOOMA ‘Sunday’
DVD 004 with Rob Bell
“But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”
Romans 7:6
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:36-40