2016.10.30 礼拝

2016.10.30 礼拝

2016.10.30　Luke 15:11-24 「Love Yourself」

Various kind of food is now available quite readily. Likewise, much information can easily be obtained about the Bible through the Internet. To keep ourselves fit, we have to exercise instead of just filling ourselves up with heavy food, and similarly we need digest and practice the good news.

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

If you loved yourself and think of yourself dearly, you would be led to choose and practice “following the will of God”, “be righteous before God”, and “do what makes God happy”. If you love yourself, you would want to be rid of your attachment to sinful nature and choose the right way to God, the salvation.

➀ Encourage and order yourself to choose what is really important to yourself.

Luke 15:17-18 17“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

Choosing to return to his father was right and the best choice to make, because he loved himself. He was able to look at himself objectively and decide to do what was good for himself.

We are daily faced with the of making the right choice – responding to God’s will – specifically:

・Believe and follow Christ or not

・Take time for devotion or do not take time

・Observe the Sunday worship and Sabbath or do it halfheartedly

・Bothersome greetings or polite greetings

・Can’t stand criticism or do not mind

・Angers easily or breathes deep

➁ Feed and care yourself

Seek growth and choose to re-do life with positive attitude.

Ephesians 5:28-29 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church –

To love yourself is to feed yourself with God’s love and grow to love one another, which is what Jesus wants.