This Week's Reflection
Five Questions for Prayer, Conversation, and Discernment
Use these questions to reflect on the assurance of God's love, Spirit-empowered agape, and the ways imperfect community forms us to love because He first loved us.
Reflect The sermon argues that perfect love casts out fear, meaning that assurance of God's love should free us from hiding, performing, and living on eggshells -- which of those three tendencies do you most struggle with, and how might a deeper belief in God's love address it?
Reflect John's command to love with agape -- choosing another person's good even when it costs you the most -- is described as far beyond natural human capacity, yet made possible through the indwelling Spirit -- what relationships in your life most challenge you to love this way, and why?
Reflect John calls anyone who claims to love God while hating a brother or sister a liar -- how does the presence of a faith community, with all its friction and imperfection, actually become the primary training ground for learning to love?
Reflect The sermon contrasts the therapeutic culture of setting boundaries and distancing from difficult people with the biblical posture of pressing into community -- where do you see genuine tension between those two approaches in your own life, and how do you navigate it?
Reflect John anchors the Christian life in the declaration that we love because He first loved us -- how does understanding love as a response to being loved, rather than a duty to perform, change the way you approach your relationships, your faith community, and your daily life?