Wednesday Review
Posted on 25. Sep, 2009 by info in chris ritter
Lately I’ve been sending out a Wednesday review to recap things we talked about as a youth group, and maybe mention a couple of things I wish we would have gotten to but didn’t. If you’re interested in knowing some of what goes down on Wednesday nights, here ya go…
We asked some difficult questions, particularly the question of “Why don’t we act like the Samaritan but usually act more like the Priest or Levite?” We have to come to grips with the fact of our selfish way of living, usually more concerned with ourselves, our schedule, our family/those we love needs to change as followers of Christ. While we may be tempted to read this story and just say “Ok I’m going to try harder to love people”, that’s not really the right approach. First we need a love for God before we can expect to deeply love the things and people that God loves. As the lawyer answered correctly, first we are to love God with everything, then we are to love others. As we love God we will naturally begin loving people more (not that everyone is easy to love!) but if we start by trying to love people, we may not end up loving God.
We finished with the question “Where do we see Jesus here? Can we identify anything in here that reminds us of the Gospel?” BJ and Josh had some great insight. Jesus is like the Samaritan in a few ways. First, he reached out to those who were hurting in life. But also he was rejected by the religious leaders of the day just like Samaritans were rejected by them. And finally, Jesus didn’t just give some money to help us out, like the Samaritan did for the hurt guy. Jesus gave his life for us, dying to save us. We are like the beat up guy, almost dead… we are dead spiritually and unable to rescue or heal ourselves of the sin that has “beaten us up” so badly. Only Christ can fully heal us, and when we see how much we need him and how much he has done to bring us to himself, we begin to be more like him and love people in a similar way to how he has loved us.
I hope this is a helpful review, and a helpful reminder of just how incredible our Savior is. Take the time to thank him for giving his life for us so that we might truly live for him, and with him forever.