Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 15:18-20
Follow The Yellow Brick Road
The Wicked Witch Is Dead
The Heart Of The Christian - Week #2
- “If I only had a heart.”
Sometimes we don’t feel like we’re very loving people. We look at society and the examples of love that society look up to, and we know we can’t fit that description.
“A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.” - Boethius
“If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.” - Michel de Montaigne
“I know in my heart that man is good.” - Ronald Reagan
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. - Romans 12:10
- “Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”
- Quote from Wizard of Oz.
But the love that God demands is even greater than the love the world is looking for. More than just being kind to our neighbor, our love needs to be a love that first springs from a love for God, something only a Christian can do.
“Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.” - Henry Ward Beecher
What kind of love and life the world thinks God is looking for
Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. - 1 John 3:15
Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. - Leviticus 19:2
Love the Lord your God with all your heart. - Luke 10:27
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. - Ephesians 4:17-19
“A heart is not judged by how much you are loved by others, but by how much you love.” - The original quote from the Wizard of Oz: A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”
On our own, we simply don’t have the heart that God demands. But once we reach the end of the road of life, Christ turns to us and tells us that we had the heart he wanted all along, because Christ gave us his heart from the moment we became Christians. Through forgiveness, we find the heart of the Christian that loves out of thanksgiving for Christ.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend. - John 15:12-13
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. - John 3:16
God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. - Romans 5:5
Points To Ponder
- Think about how unloving and impersonal our society has grown. Come up with a personal action plan to change this in your life.
- Evaluate this statement - A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.
HOMEWORK-Joshua 1