One of the verses which gives us a foundation for the Love 40 days challenge is Ephesians 5:2 which tells us to: live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.
It is our prayer that over these forty days each one of us becomes more Christlike - following him as he loves the world. To follow his example we need to know what he did and how he did it - so here are some stories from the book of Matthew to help us...
- Matthew 8:1-4 -Jesus is always ready and willing to help people - healing a man from leprosy
- Matthew 9:1-8 - Jesus forgives and meets needs - healing the paralysed man
- Matthew 9:20-22 - Jesus reaches to the unclean, ends suffering, brings hope and encouragement - healing the woman with constant bleeding
- Matthew 12:9-13 - Jesus puts people over tradition, schedule or being in a religious club - healing the man with a deformed hand on the Sabbath
- Matthew 14:13-15 - Jesus' compassion for the lost overrides his own grief and emotions - following the death of John the Baptist
- Matthew 15:21-28 - Jesus loves and serves indiscriminately - the story of the faith of the Gentile woman
- Matthew 19:13-15 - Jesus loves the little ones - blessing the children
I love the story of Zacchaeus. Jesus sees something no one else does in Zacchaeus and invites himself to eat with him. And after spending time with Jesus Zacchaeus knows what he has to do and changes his behaviour no doubt resulting in a changed community (I'd want to know more if I got four times back what I had lost). Jesus' love is right in the moment, surprising, even shocking, and always with so much more in the bigger picture than you can see straight away. I want to see the people hiding in "trees" this week!
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