28 Day Love Challenge · February · Love · Valentines

Day 1 –To Love or Not to Love

 

Jesus when asked what the most important commandment was said.

Matthew 22:37 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

And Jesus said if you love him than

John 15: 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.  15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

And John tells us in his first letter

1 John 4:Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 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.

 

This 28 Day Challenge is for Christians, those who have accepted the sacrifice of Christ and have asked Him to be Lord of their lives.  We love God because He first loved us and what He asks from us is that we love others as he loved us.

Journal

  1. Are you a Christian?  Have you asked Christ for forgiveness of your sins and to be Lord of your life?  If not you can do so now.  It is not complicated, but you have to be sincere.  Christianity is about faith or trust.  You trust that Christ’s sacrifice removes your sin, you trust that Christ loves you and that He will guide you through the Holy Spirit.
  2. Write a statement of commitment that for the next 28 days you will be open to God filling you with His love for others.

Activity

Keep a small notebook with you during the next 28 days.  As you interact with people who you know are Christians, do you see examples of Christian love?  Make a quick note of what you see.

Also note moments when you could have shown Christ’s love but didn’t.

 

 

 

 

28 Day Love Challenge · February · Love · Valentines

The Twenty Eight Day Love Challenge

28-Day Challenge

 

Join me in a beginner’s fitness course in love.  Not the ooey gooey bubble gum love of a crush.  Not romantic fluttery type of love.  I am not even talking about the love of a mom who is totally responsible for the well being of a newborn baby.  Nope.

This challenge is for Christians who want to grow stronger in the one-way Jesus specifically asked us to grow if we loved Him. I plan to study what the bible has to say about agape love translated originally in Latin as caritas (preciousness, dearness, high price).

Just remember, according to 1 Cor 13 if you can speak with all the languages of men and angels, but do not have Caritas then you sound like a big brass gong.  Loud and jarring.  Or if you can teach and you understand the greatest mysteries and you know just about everything and you actually have enough faith to move a mountain but you do not have charitas you are nothing.

If you take everything you have and give it to feed the poor or you are willing to sacrifice your body to the flames but don’t have charitas then it means nothing.

Each day we will look at what the bible says about the love Christ expects from us. There will be questions for journaling or meditation.  And on most days there will be challenges (actions) to start getting us into the habit of acting on what we read.

I hope you will come along with me as I dig deeper into this type of love Jesus said we should practice if we love him.

 

28 Day Love Challenge · February · Love · Valentines

My Starting Play List for February: Theme Love

His Love Endures Forever                               Tommy Walker and the C.A. Worship Band

Until the Whole World Hears                             Casting Crowns

Father I Adore You                                          Matt Brouwer

You Are My King (Amazing Love)                     Newsboys

Take My Life (and Let It Be)                             Chris Tomlin

Here I Am Again                                              Matt Brouwer

Perfect People                                                 Natalie Grant

My Own Little World                                         Matthew West

Love You So Much                                           Hillsong

You Are Being Loved                                        Steven Curtis Chapman

Children of God                                                Steven Curtis Chapman

What This World Needs                                    Casting Crowns

Matthew’s Song                                                 Chasing Canaan

Jesus, Friend of Sinners                                   Casting Crowns

So Far to Find You                                           Casting Crowns

You Gave Me Love                                           B.J. Thomas

The Business of Love                                       Charlie Daniels

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us                     Nichole Nordeman

Love Song for a King                                         Caleb Rowden

As the Deer                                                      Adore

Here Is Love                                                     Matt Redman

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go                        Chris Rice