Our student ministry has been looking at the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-39) for the last five weeks. We have especially been focusing on loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, loving our neighbors, and remembering how much God loves us, which gives us a proper view of ourselves and allows us to love ourselves properly.

Tonight, we talked through how difficult it is to actually accomplish these things, or DO them, on a daily basis. We talked about how the only real way to be able to do what God wants us to do is by remaining in Him. We likened it to how you must stay near the WiFi or the Bluetooth signal in order for it to work for us. When we stray away, it just doesn’t work. We can no longer hear our music or access the information we want to access. It’s useless.

Jesus tells us that in order to bear fruit, we must remain in him. We must stay close and connected to him. If we don’t, we can do nothing.

I gave our students an acrostic with some keys to “abiding in Christ.” I want to share them here:

How to Stay Close:

• Spend time ⏰ in the word of God 📖 (you cant know Jesus without reading His word)
• Take a 👀 look at your life (are you trying too hard? Are you faithless? Are you faith-full)
• Ask 🙏🏼 for help from God (you can do nothing)
• Yield 🔺to God’s instruction. Obey!

My prayer is that these tips will help our students to STAY close to Jesus as they seek to live out the Great Commandment.