Discovering God's Unconditional Love in Prayer Session - Essay Sample

Introduction

During the prayer session, I felt the overwhelming love of God in my life, and I discovered that God’s love is unconditional. I thought that being alive, especially in these trying times when there is a ranging pandemic in the world today, is not by luck but a demonstration of God’s love for me. I felt the need to focus on how to love God just like he loves us, and I wondered how it would be possible. Loving God would mean a demonstration of our love to him, even in our most weak moments. Thus, this guided me to the chapter, Deuteronomy 6:1-9, where God instructs the Israelites how they should love him. Loving God only entails obedience to his commands, which will be the main focus of this bible study lesson.

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Lesson Plan

Focus

The primary focus of this bible study is to teach on the need to love God and what love for God means. In the passage selected, Deuteronomy 6:1-9, God asks the children of Israel to love him with all their heart since there is only one God. Before giving this command of love, God told the Israelites to hear and obey those words since if they followed what God taught them, they would increase immensely in a land of flowing milk and honey.

Create Interest

The video, God is Love, will be used to create interest among the youth listeners. The lesson is primarily aimed at teaching young people aged between 15 and 18 years on the importance of loving God. At the start of the lesson, the students will be exposed to a you-tube video, God is Love, where they will learn more about God’s love and gain interest in this study.

Link for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPz-LiwqNfgExpose Need

How can we claim that we love God yet we have no love for other people? God is the first cause of all the good and the right to exist in the world today. Love is a reflection of the perfect love that God has for us. God’s love for us is the reason for our existence, and it sustains up up-to-date. Some people think that loving God is shown by prayer and going to church. Loving God entails more than these religious acts. As indicated in Deuteronomy 6:1-9, loving God truly requires us to love him with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. True love for God includes obeying his commands and loving our neighbors. The following steps serve as guidelines towards loving God:

• Know God
• Understand and obey God’s commands
• Love other people
• Avoid attachments to worldly things
• Demonstrate honest actions
• Have faith and trust in God

After loving God, God claims that he is faithful in delivering his promises to humans. In Deuteronomy, God promises the Israelites that he will increase them greatly in the land of milk and honey that he promised to give them when they obey his commands and love him faithfully.

Explore God’s Story

Analysis of Historical Context

The book of Deuteronomy is one of the Torah or Pentateuch. The book contains the final words of Moses to the Israelites the day before they cross the River Jordan to possess Canaan, the promised land. Importantly, this book contains guidelines that Israelites were to follow, such as obedience towards God. In Deuteronomy, love means loyalty and obedience towards God. Such love is often expressed through adherence to the law. Thus, this love can also be described as covenantal love.

Discussion of the Passage

In Deuteronomy 6:1-9, the verse starts by telling the Israelites that the chapter contains the commands that they ought to follow as they cross the River Jordan towards the promised land (Deuteronomy 6:1, New King James Version). In verse two of the bible verse, the bible contains a promise that God has for the Israelites once they follow all the commands that will be given to them. It is stated that if they keep and obey the commands and decrees that God gives to them, they will enjoy a long life together with their generations (Deuteronomy 6:2, New King James Version). From this, it becomes clear that obeying God leads to a long life, and God protects one’s generations as well. The third verse contains another promise, where God tells the Israelites that he will greatly increase them (Deuteronomy 6:3, New King James Version). Also, God appears to remind them that he is a promise keeper since he promised that he would take them to Canaan after saving them from Egypt. God described Canaan as a land that has lowing milk and honey, which means good tidings. The verse could be interpreted to mean that God would fulfill this promise if they met the underlying condition of obedience in the same way he has taken them to Canaan.

The fourth verse indicates that the Lord is one, meaning that they should not worship any other God apart from him (Deuteronomy 6:4, New King James Version). The fifth verse proceeds by stating that the Israelites should love God with all their hearts, souls, and strengths, while the sixth commands them to keep these words to heart and never forget them. Further, God tells the Israelites to impose these commands on their children, ties them as symbols on their hands, and write them on their gates and doorframe. Primarily, the fifth to the ninth verse directs the Israelites that they should love God and bring up their children in Godly ways (Deuteronomy 6:1-9, New King James Version). All their actions should aim at glorifying God.

Spiritual Themes

From the verse-by-verse analysis, the spiritual themes that one can see are faithfulness, obedience, and God’s promises to humans. The obedience described in the chapter is not a duty but a way of expressing one’s covenantal relationship. The take away is that God does not force us to obey him. The Lord wants us to obey him as a way of showing him our love.

Author’s Intent

The scripture intends to remind the Israelites of the importance of obeying and loving God. Also, they are reminded that God is one; hence they should not worship any other God apart from him. The scripture reminds the Israelites of God’s promises to us.

Visualize the Principle

We should love God in all situations, regardless of the circumstances. Love him when we are sick, after losing our loved ones, when situations become unbearable and when times are hard. No matter what life throws at us, nothing could separate us from the love of God. Besides, the bible indicated in Romans that nothing stops God from loving us regardless of the sins we have committed, and all our flaws for his love is unconditional (Romans 8: 38-39, New King James Version). We should love God in the same way he loves us.

Consequently, we should not claim to love God yet we continually disobey him by engaging is forbidden actions. God encourages us to obey his commands as a way of showing that we love him. Engaging in acts such as prostitution, sexual immorality, lies, adultery, stealing, murdering, and coveting, to mention a few, are actions of disobedience to God, and continued engagement in these acts shows that we have no love for God. Therefore, the demonstration of God’s love entails obedience and behaving in a godly manner.