This Summer at OCC we are starting a new Sunday series titled, God’s Love.
In Ephesians 3:17-19, Paul prays "that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
We understand that getting to know the love of Jesus is done by walking with him in prayer and worship, by being with the family of God, encountering Him in his people and also by continually discovering and rediscovering Him in the scriptures.
And so, through this series, we are hoping to grasp afresh the love that Jesus has for us by looking at various parts of the Old Testament. But why the Old Testament, I hear your ask? Why not the New Testament? In Luke 24:44. Jesus says to his disciples "everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." And so, we can turn to the Old Testament scriptures expectant that we will find Jesus’s love there too. The Old Testament is a treasure for us, and through this series we hope to discover new depths and heights of His love there.
And as we consider God’s love for us – his holy love, his faithful love, his creative love – we expect that it will rebound from us back to Him, so that we can “love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength” (Mark 12:30).
In response to a question, Jesus described this as the most important commandment, but he added, “the second is this: ‘love your neighbour as yourself’” (Mark 12:31). And so, we don’t expect God’s love to just stop with us and Him, but as we go through this series, week by week, we expect the love of God, freshly revealed to us, and rebounded back to Him, will also go out to those around us.
As we gather on Sunday mornings over the Summer, come ready for God’s love to be revealed to you in new and deeper ways, and come with hearts open to be stirred to show that love to those around you.
