Choose Love - Verse 6

The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5.5,6

Choose to Receive
To choose love is not simply to choose to give, it is to choose to receive. Love flows, love is dynamic. It is given as it is received. It is, more than anything, a gift of God to us, through Christ and through his Holy Spirit.

Stop and Think

How easy do you find it to receive love from others? Is this reflected in how easy you find it to give love?
In what ways is God’s love offered to you through the death of Christ and the life of the Spirit?

Choose to Act

Take time to thank God for his gift of love to you and to receive it afresh.
Choose to receive love from others as it is offered to you today.

Choose Love - Verse 5

Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12.20,21

Choose to Win
To choose love is to choose to win; not victory over others, but the defeat of evil, anger and hatred. To choose love is, as it was for Jesus, to choose to overcome.

Stop and Think

In what ways in your life has love proved to be the way of victory?
What might it mean for you to overcome evil with good?

Choose to Act

Thank God for the victory of love in your life, for the joy and hope and freedom that it has brought to you.
Choose today the way of generous, forgiving love; choose a little act of goodness which subverts anger, hate and selfishness

Choose Love - Verse 4

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Romans 12.15

Choose Compassion
Love is expressed through our deeds and our words, it is love in action. But love begins in our hearts, hearts that are not always seeking to take but are free to give - free to rejoice with others’ joy and free to weep with others’ sorrow.

Stop and Think

What makes it hard to rejoice or to weep with others?
What frees us to offer the compassion that flows from a heart of love?

Choose to Act

Take time today to reflect on God’s unconditional compassionate love for you.
Choose today to let yourself be genuinely happy in others’ joy and to be truly sad in others’ grief.

Choose Love - Verse 3

Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Romans 12.14

Choose Blessing
To choose love is to choose to bless all people, especially those who make life difficult for us, or who cause us pain and hurt. There is a hard edge to love, a radical unexpected aspect that responds with generous bridge building actions and words.

Stop and Think
Who are those who ‘persecute’ you? How easy is it to respond by ‘cursing’ them? What might it mean for you to ‘bless’ them?

Choose to Act
Pray for those who are persecuted and who struggle to respond in love. Choose, in your words and your deeds, to bless someone today; someone you find hard to love.

Choose Love - Verse 2

Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister.Matthew20.25,26

Choose Service
A Minister, whether in Church or Government, is invariably seen to be in a place of authority and status. Jesus reminds us that the word means one who serves, the true characteristic of leadership and greatness.

Stop and Think

What qualities, in your experience, make someone great? Does readiness to serve play a part?
How in your life can you serve other people?

Choose to Act

Thank God for those who minster to you, those who serve you. Take time today to thank them.
Choose today to take opportunities to serve others.

Choose Love - Verse 1

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Song of Solomon8.7

Choose Love
This week looks further into what it means to choose love. To begin, a powerful description of the power and depth of love. What can contain or conquer love?

Stop and Think

What has love meant in your life? What has its power and depth brought to you?
What is love? What words might be used to describe it?

Choose to Act

On this ‘Passion Sunday’, as we reflect on the suffering of Jesus, choose to embrace the depth and strength of love.

Choose Life - Verse 7

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. John 10.10,11

Choose abundance
To choose Christ is to choose life. His death opens for us the way to life; his presence fills us with life - life in all its fullness.
What a gift.

Stop and Think

What does it mean for you to choose Christ?
How does his gift of life make a difference to you?

Choose to Act

Take time to consider your reflections and your choices this week. Have they born fruit?
Choose Christ today and to live in the fullness of the life he gives. Choose to share that life with others.

Choose Life - Verse 6

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. John 12.24,25
Choose to let go
A seed contains within itself an amazing capacity of life; it’s released as the seed dies. So, Jesus says, as we learn to let go, to ‘die’, we discover our own capacity to embrace life and to give life.

Stop and Think

How is this truth at work in Jesus’ own death and life?
How has this truth been a reality in your own life?
What might you let go of today?

Choose to Act

Choose to embrace your capacity for life by letting go of something today.
Take time to pray for those experiencing death today; may they find life in that journey.

Choose Life - Verse 5

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Matthew 7.13-14

Choose the narrow way
To choose life is to embrace something broad and abundant; but the way to life is often narrow and hard to find.

Stop and Think

What has been the narrow way for you?
What choices face you as you seek to embrace the gift of life more fully?
Choose to Act

Choose life today, even when the way to it is hard, unpopular or costly.
Choose to do something today which creates a new path, a new way, for you or for someone else.

Choose Life - Verse 4

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Philippians 4.8

Choose Truth
As we choose to trust and receive God’s peace, we choose to let that peace fill our minds and shape our thoughts and reflections, and therefore our actions.

Stop and Think

What things will fill your mind today? Are they true, honest, just, pure and lovely?
What helps you to choose truth and virtue? What fills your mind with ‘other stuff’.

Choose to Act

Choose today to reflect on some thing of beauty and loveliness.
Choose to live in honesty and truth. Think differently, live differently.

Choose Life - Verse 3

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4.6-7

Choose Peace
As we choose faith, as we choose to trust and to pray, so we are choosing peace - that most amazing, unexpected and life changing gift of God.
Stop and Think

What might it mean for you to choose to trust God today?
What causes you to be anxious? What stops you letting ‘your requests be made known to God’?

Choose to Act

Take time to put yourself and your worries into God’s hands.
Choose to receive God’s gift of peace; live today in that peace and trust.

Choose Life - Verse 1

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life.
Deuteronomy 30.19

Choose Life
This week looks in more detail at what it means to choose life. To begin, a challenge from God to his people at a moment of decision. Will your choice be for life or for death?

Stop and Think

When have you had to face big moments of decision? When have seemingly small choices had big consequences?
What helps you see what it means in a particular situation to ‘choose life’?

Choose to Act

Choose life today. Seek in the big or little decisions you make today to choose the way that leads to life.

Choose Life - Verse 2

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Mark 9.24


Choose Faith
“I wish I had your faith.” It’s a commonly heard expression. But is faith ever easy for any of us? Isn’t it always, or nearly always, a combination of faith and unbelief. The point here is that the father, in his faith and in his unbelief, makes a choice to cry out to Jesus.
Stop and Think

Where and when does faith come quickly or slowly?
What strengthens and what shakes your faith?
What has it meant for you to choose faith?

Choose to Act

Take time to pray for those who cry out to God for help in tears, perhaps especially for parents in tears.
Choose faith today. Choose a word, an action, a prayer which is expression of faith even when its hard to believe.

Choose Friend - Verse 7

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.John 14.34,35

Witness

Following the two ‘great commandments’ (see week 1), Jesus adds a new one. His followers’ love for one another is shaped by Jesus love for them and is the clearest witness to the reality of God’s life and presence in them.

Stop and Think
What does it mean to love as Jesus has ‘loved you’?

How do people know you are a follower of Jesus?

Choose to Act
Take time to consider your reflections and your choices this week. Have they born fruit?

Choose friendship today. Choose to love as Jesus loves you. Choose to do something to make that love known.

Choose Friend - Verse 6

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. Ephesians 2.14,15

Reconciliation

St Paul talks about the meaning and the effect of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The heart of it all is reconciliation, making peace. Peace between us and God, and peace between people.

Stop and Think
How does Jesus bring change to your relationships with other people?

What does St Paul mean be “one new man (humanity)”? Where do we see the reality of this?

Choose to Act
Thank God for the reconciliation that he brings us through Jesus.

Choose today a practical way to celebrate and to live out that gift of peace and oneness with others.