Lesson 16

The type of person we are, is made known to others by our repeated actions. When we are consistently honest we will be known as an honest person. If we consistently swindle others, we will gain a reputation as an untrustworthy thief. When we work hard and always do our best, we will be regarded in a positive way. Gaining these attributes will come at a cost and takes personal sacrifice. Like true love, a sacrifice is never a sacrifice, if it has no cost. Love will always cost us something, as we work towards making our hopes and dreams a reality. The greater the sacrifice the greater the cost. Developing an outgoing love comes out of a healthy love of yourself, for if you do not even love yourself, how can you love others? Do you do good toward others to selfishly gain things for yourself? Is that true love? How are your hopes and dreams turning into reality through the actions you take and the sacrifices you make? Is our future shaped by our choices, or is life only a game of chance? Does love control our reality and destiny? What did it cost God to obtain his goal and what is it?

1 John 3:16-18 International Children’s Bible
16 This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers. 17 Suppose a believer is rich enough to have all that he needs. He sees his brother in Christ who is poor and does not have what he needs. What if the believer does not help the poor brother? Then the believer does not have God’s love in his heart. 18 My children, our love should not be only words and talk. Our love must be true love. And we should show that love by what we do.

John 3:14-17 Good News Translation
14 As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.

Ephesians 5:25-29 Easy-to-Read Version
25 Husbands, love your wives the same as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. 26 He died to make the church holy. He used the telling of the Good News to make the church clean by washing it with water. 27 Christ died so that he could give the church to himself like a bride in all her beauty. He died so that the church could be holy and without fault, with no evil or sin or any other thing wrong in it. 28 And husbands should love their wives like that. They should love their wives as they love their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself, 29 because no one ever hates his own body, but feeds and takes care of it. And that is what Christ does for the church.