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LESSON 3: MY GIFT OF LOVE

Loving God Is My Gift to Him

“So what’s on your heart this week?” Hopefully you have taken some time during our study to reflect on how to use your interests and passions for God. But what about when you see things in yourself that fall short of God’s standard? Do we assume we’re a lost cause and of no use to God? We cannot hide our good qualities or our failures from Him. He “alone knows every human heart” (1 Kings 8:39). But be of good cheer, the ungodly things I find in my heart bring me to Him in a special way, a humble way. I wish I could bring to Him a Great Commandment Christian-fully assembled and ready to serve, but I came broken and, though I’m not a slave to sin, my flesh still fights against my makeover. When I recognize this and grieve my sin then I am in a position for God to transform my heart. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but the Lord promises that He is near to the brokenhearted.

LESSON 2: GOD’S GIFT OF WISDOM

Wisdom – God’s Operating System for Your Heart

About two years ago I started using a Mac laptop instead of my old PC. One thing that prompted that switch was the problems I was having with viruses on my PC. As it turns out, the Mac operating system is much less prone to virus problems. It does a better job on its own, without the expense of extra virus protection services, of keeping out unwanted and damaging material that could slow down or freeze up my machine.

Last week we talked about the good passions and desires that God has put in our hearts, let’s call them the pre-loaded software. We also talked about guarding our hearts from storing up ungodly things, let’s call them malware or viruses.

LESSON 1: START WITH YOUR HEART

For an Extreme Makeover: Start with a Heart Check

When Jesus gave the greatest commandment, He was responding to a scribe who was asking the most important question for someone who believes in the all-powerful God of the Bible. What does God want from me? Jesus was glad to answer. He quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5. The answer was simple but profound…if you want to know what God really wants from you, the answer is love – practical, everything I have and am, love – and it starts with your heart.