Loving God with Our Minds. Leader Guide Unit 3 lesson 1

Transcription

1 Loving God with Our Minds Leader Guide Unit 3 lesson 1

2 Scripture Matthew 22:34-40 Lesson Overview: Intellectual Dimension Our minds are powerful and one of God s greatest gifts to us. Humans can use their minds to do wonderful and amazing things in life, like finding cures for diseases, figuring out how to fly through the air in a man-made machine, how to navigate through daily trials and situations using reason and problem solving skills, and much more. Other people have used their minds in less honorable ways, like finding out the best way to rob a store, thinking of ways to hurt other people, and so forth. In this first lesson, students will take a look at what Jesus calls the greatest commandment in all of Scripture: to love God and love others. One way that we love, worship, and honor God is with our minds. Students will be challenged to ask the question: What does it look like for me to love God with all of my mind? Biblical Commentary When Jesus tells the Pharisees that the greatest commandment in all of Scripture is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, these areas of one s life are not meant to be understood as mutually exclusive. Instead, Jesus is trying to communicate to his listeners that our love for God must come from our whole person. Our love for God must encompass every aspect of our lives. The fact that Jesus refers to this command as the first and greatest infers that it is primary above all other commands. Jesus connects the commandment to love God with another commandment: to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. While some people may read this who don t experience great self-love, Jesus says this statement with the assumption that people desire the best for themselves and desire health and wellness. The two commandments cannot stand without each other. One cannot truly love God with all of one s heart, soul, and mind while harboring hatred for one s brother and/or sister. Likewise, it is impossible to truly love one s neighbor while hating the author of love. True love demands abandonment of self to God, and God alone is the only true incentive for this abandonment. Jesus s main point in giving this command is to show the priority of love in the law. The reason all the laws of Scripture hang on these two laws is that no other laws can truly be obeyed without observing these two. The entire biblical revelation demands a heart religion that is marked by total faithfulness and allegiance to God, loving him and loving one s neighbor. To take these two commandments out of the Bible would make it empty and void. As you teach this scripture to your students, the lesson will focus on what it means to honor, love, and glorify God with our minds. Our minds are a gift from God, and we have been entrusted with great freedom in how we use our minds. May we seek to love the Lord with all of our minds. Reflect on these themes: Your Mind: Do you fill your mind in ways that build you up and encourage you toward Christlikeness? Love: Do you seek to love God with your mind? Think about your students: Do your students understand that they can love and honor God with their minds? What do your students fill their minds with? Resources White board/poster board Student handout Journals (creative option) Messages to Parents and Teens For Teens: The following are a couple of text messages, Tweets, or Facebook statuses you could send out to your students to promote the meeting and/or prepare them for it. Hey there friends, please check out Matthew 22:34-40 before you come to group this week. What is 2 Jesus getting at here? Let s talk about it together!

3 How do we love God and honor God with our minds? Think about that one for a little bit and be ready to talk about it at group this week. For parents: Here are some text messages to get parents and teens talking before your next meeting and a follow-up to equip parents to continue encouraging their teens to engage in living out God s mission. Take some time to read Matthew 22:34-40 and ask your students, How can we love and honor God with our minds? This week we are looking at the greatest commandment in all of Scripture. Ask your students if they know what that is and what it means. This is a follow-up /message you may wish to send to parents regarding the content that you studied during group time. Dear Parents, This week we looked at the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:34-40) in all of Scripture: the call to love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds along with the call to love our neighbors as ourselves. We focused on the question of, What does it mean to love God with our minds? We love God with our minds by choosing to be disciples, learning the Scriptures, and filling our minds with God-honoring things. We also talked about harmful and sinful things we can do to our minds and fill our minds with. Here are some follow-up questions you can discuss with your students: What are one or two things you remember from your small group time? What does it mean to love God with our minds? 3

4 Lesson Guide Explore Open your time by allowing students to share the highlights of their weeks. Also allow them to share any praises or prayer requests. Open your group time in prayer. Option: Clean and Dirty Water Purpose: To introduce the lesson by conveying that something good (in this case, water) has the possibility of becoming dirty and unhealthy. Before class begins, collect some water in a clear plastic bottle. Take off any outer paper so the students can see as much of the water as possible. Put some mud, dirt, and other impurities inside the water so it looks really nasty. ASK: How many people like water, especially when they are thirsty? What do you think about this water I have? What would happen if you drank this water five times a day, every day? Who would be interested in drinking this water that is filled with mud, dirt, and a couple dead bugs? Hopefully no one in the group is interested in drinking the nasty concoction! SAY: My guess is that the reason none of you are interested in drinking this water is that you have noticed that something that was originally good has become kind of nasty. If we are not careful and attentive, this water can sort of be like our minds. We can fill our minds with great things and use our minds in great ways, or we can allow our minds to become polluted with the things we put in it. In today s lesson we are going to talk about what it looks like to love and honor God with our minds. Encounter Option: Questions Surrounding the Text Purpose: To explore and understand the text Ask a volunteer to read Matthew 22: You may want to have the passage read aloud a couple times, using two different translations to help the students to hear and understand what is being said. ASK & DISCUSS: What do you think it means to love God with our minds? What are ways we can use our minds that love and honor God? What are ways we can sin with how we use our minds? Do you think it is possible to love God with all your mind while regularly watching movies, television, or music that is filled with violence, sexuality, and/or bad language? Why or why not? Option: Filling Our Minds Purpose: To help students better understand that what we fill our minds with has the potential to be God honoring or hurtful to us. (This option would be best done after students have already read the passage and discussed some of the questions listed above.) SAY: I am going to read a few short stories along with a question or two afterward. These stories deal with loving and honoring God with our minds and the choices we make. Story #1: Derrick is in eighth grade and decides he wants to change the way he starts off his mornings. Instead of instantly getting on the computer to check Facebook and play games, he begins journaling a prayer to God. In his prayers Derrick thanks God for the blessings in his life and asks God to help him live faithfully that day, ASK: How is Derrick loving and honoring God with his choices? How do you think Derrick s choice to start off his day in prayer could affect him? Story #2: Layna recently finished a book series that had a strong romantic relationship between a teenage guy and girl. While researching the book online, she stumbled across a website where other fans added graphic sexual content to the book. Whenever Layna s parents left her home alone, she got online and read these pornographic stories. She did this for months. ASK: How is Layna using her free will in a way that is sinful and hurtful to her? How do you think this behavior could affect Layna in the long run? Story #3: Wyatt really struggled showing love toward Eli. Eli completely ditched him at a football game last year and started spreading bad rumors about him. Wyatt felt anger and hatred toward his former best friend. After hearing a message at church, Wyatt made a decision that every time he saw Eli or thought about him, he would pray a prayer to himself asking God to help him to love and forgive Eli. 4

5 ASK: How is Wyatt loving and honoring God with his mind? How do you think Wyatt s prayer could change his own heart over time? SAY: God has given all of us a mind, and we can do whatever we like with it. We have the freedom to make choices and decisions each and every day. One of the ways that we love God with our minds is by making choices that give honor and glory to God. Engage Option: How Are You Being Fed? Purpose: To challenge your students to think about practices and disciplines they could incorporate into their lives to help them nourish their minds in ways that honor God. Say: We all have patterns that we do every single day. We all wake up, we all get dressed, we all have some sort of daily routine. If we have any hope in loving God with our mind and loving others, we need to add practices to our lives that will help us do this. We also may need to cut out certain practices that are not good for us. How can we love God if we don t devote any time connecting to God in prayer and reading his Word? Using a white board or poster board, ask your students to think about things they could do or not do in their lives that could help them as they seek to love and honor God with their minds. Feel free to add your own thoughts and ideas to the list. If the students do not mention prayer or reading God s Word, be sure to mention and add them. Write down the responses on the white board or poster board. After all the students have finished sharing, challenge them to incorporate some or all of these practices into their lives. Go around the room and ask what sticks out on the list that they would like to see in their own lives. Closing Reaffirm the following truths to your students: Jesus told his listeners that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We love and honor God with our minds by the different things we fill our minds with and the choices we make. We can use our freedom in God-honoring ways or in sinful and hurtful ways. Close your lesson in prayer. Ask that God would help each of you to love and honor God with your minds. 5

6 Creative Options Explore: Agree or Disagree Purpose: To introduce the topic and to help students realize that what fills their minds can greatly influence their behavior and their choices. SAY: To begin this lesson, I want you to use your imagination. I am going to make a few statements, and it is your job to tell me if you agree or disagree with the statement and why. If my teachers told me that I was stupid and worthless every day at school, it would begin to affect what I thought of myself and how I viewed school. I can be around people who talk dirty, watch television and movies with dirty language, and play video games with dirty language, but I don t think it influences how I think or talk. If I start my day off in prayer and ask God to guide me and give me strength, I notice a difference in my attitude. SAY: The reason why I asked you what you thought about those statements is that in some way or another they all had to do with our minds and the way we think. In what Jesus calls the greatest commandment in the whole Bible, he talks about loving God with our minds. Today we are going to talk about what that means. Encounter: A Look at Romans 12:1-2 Purpose: To provide students with another key passage that talks about honoring and loving God with our minds. Have students Read Romans 12:1-2 aloud as a group. ASK & DISCUSS: What do you think verse 2 is talking about? What do you think the author means by, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind? What patterns and behavior do you see in TV, movies, music, and around you that followers of Christ should not conform to? How can some of these unhealthy patterns affect Christians? Engage: Journal It- Make a List Purpose: To challenge students to think about ways they can love and honor God with their minds. SAY: To close our group time together I want to challenge all of you to think about at least three ways you could better love and honor God with your minds and with the choices you make. Have students write down their responses in their journals, on the student handout, or on a piece of paper that you provide. SAY: God does not force us to follow him. We have the freedom to choose how we live. Here are a few examples of some things that might make my list: (Feel free to alter this list to fit your personality and life.) Examples: To cut down on the amount of time I waste playing video games when I could be spending time with other people or doing something more constructive. To spend more time learning the Scriptures. To start my day off in prayer and reading the Scriptures before I check my phone, get on the computer, turn on a television, etc. To memorize a verse of Scripture every week. To ask God to help me love a person I have had difficulty loving. To stop watching movies that I know are not good to watch. To make choices throughout my day that I know are loving toward God and others. Give students a few minutes to work on this and then ask them to share one or two that they wrote down. As each person shares, ask the group if there would be one person willing to pray for that person throughout the week. You may want to write down your students responses so you can follow up with them. 6