Annual Spiritual Checkup
As an extra resource, we encourage you to read this piece by The C.S. Lewis Institute on "Loving God and Loving Neighbor." The C.S. Lewis Institute writes: "Each year many of us will go through a physical checkup, perhaps do a financial checkup at year's end or at tax time, and perhaps do a performance review at our workplace. But how often do we take time to review our spiritual life?" As the first in a series of "spiritual checkup" topics, this piece on the greatest commandments reminds us to examine our spiritual lives and prayerfully seek God's help and growth in the New Year. Read the article HERE.
Discussion Questions
“Life is not divided between people who live by faith and people who don’t. Every human lives by faith. It may be faith in religion. It may be faith in science. It may be faith in yourself. At some point, you’re latching onto something... What deep set of beliefs are you really clinging to?”
Matthew 22:34-40 — For generations, the Jewish people have recited the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), which means “hear” or “listen.” The Shema is a morning and evening prayer expressing devotion to God, a creed declaring the basic principles of Jewish belief. The title is not to be taken lightly because it reminds those who recite it that listening and doing are inseparable - not just acknowledgment but also effort, action and intensity. This is the declaration that Jesus refers to when he answers the Pharisee lawyer who asks him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus’ answer points back to Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (ESV)
CLICK HERE to watch a video (4:42 minutes) on “might.” Next, CLICK HERE to watch a video on “heart” (3:50 minutes).
Are there ways that you have limited or compartmentalized your “muchness” (your everything, your force, your abundance) in your response to God? If so, why? What interferes with loving God with muchness, and can you think of a pattern in how you are disrupted? Conversely, how have you experienced this “muchness”? Why? How have you learned to devote your feelings and desires, your future and your failures, to God every day?
For your reference:
Look up the Hebrew word “meod” from Deuteronomy 6:5: CLICK HERE
Look up the Greek word “ischus” from Luke 10:27 and Mark 12:30: CLICK HERE
Psalm 99 — Verse 8 tells us that God is both forgiving and an avenger of wrongdoings. What is your reaction to this paradox?* How has this passage encouraged or challenged you? How would you communicate this message of God’s justice and mercy (and holiness) in your family, neighborhood, church and workplace? How has the intensity/muchness of your love for God been fanned into flame by your view of His justice, mercy, or holiness? (Give an example of how you have experienced or observed one of these characteristics of God.) How are your actions reflecting God’s character?
*How comfortable are you with accepting mystery? How much do you wrestle with it? Consider any struggles with other paradoxes in Scripture…
Peace and Division
God’s transcendence and immanence
Jesus is both the Son of Man and the Son of God
God is one divine nature and three divine persons
Scripture is God’s Word and yet authored by human authors
When we are weak, we are strong because Christ’s power rests on us
CLICK HERE for some study resources.