Have you ever played a word association game? If I say to you “chocolate” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Word association games are something that I used to play all of the time. And as humans we tend to associate things with words all of the time. If I say to you “love” what do you think of? What if I say “God’s love”? Many of us associate the love of God with ideas and thoughts of human love. We may associate with with a really good feeling of human love, or we may associate it with a really bad feeling of human love depending on our personal experiences… but most of the time we think and behave and have ideas of the love of God really not being much different than the love of a human.
However I want to share with you the truth of the love of God. His love is far superior and much better than even the best love that any human can ever offer. His love is divine. His love is all-encompassing and His love never fails. Today in this study we will be exploring the Divine love of God and how it is so much better than the love of humans. And by seeing this love, you will be able to approach God with a new attitude, free from fear, free from uncertainty and free from the shifting-sand of human ideas and emotions.
All across the world, ministers are studying hard, stressing and struggling to lead the flock and come up with fresh food to feed the sheep, usually multiple times per week. This term “fresh food” can be a bit confusing, in that it is not that parts of the Gospel are stale – no, God's Word is always fresh, but that the Holy Spirit has a specific word for the people at that specific time, and there are many ministers today who find it difficult to know what that word is and how to deliver it to the people; or worse, they have utterly given-up.
So today, as part of our series on leadership, we are going to be studying how to have an effective ministry that is led by the Holy Spirit (which is the only way one can be truly effective). This applies not only to pastors, but also to every minister and indeed each one of us as well as we go about our day and encounter areas to minister and share Christ with others as well.