Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Father’s day is a special day, right? We not only have an earthly father, we all have a heavenly father who never ceases loving us.
OK, today, I am going to grill special hamburgers called love-burgers as a treat to fathers. This love-burger has special ingredients. It is with Bible verses Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
God is our heavenly father, he wants us to love him with every part of our body, with our heart, soul, mind and strength. God gave us an earthly father to raise us, love us and protect us on earth. God commanded us to obey and honor our parents in the Lord. Surely God will be pleased if we can also love our earthly father with our best in the Lord. So, today the burgers I am grilling have 4 important parts: loving-soul, loving-heart, loving-mind and loving-strength.
The top bun I put soul to it: what is soul? It is the emotion, and the passion. With a loving-soul, the burger feels so tender, good looking and attractive and tasty.
Children, you celebrate Father’s day starting from you say “Good morning, daddy!” “Happy Father’s day!” to your daddy and give him a loving hug. Are you giving a hug with a sad face or unhappy feeling? Remember when you say good morning to your daddy, it is the right moment to show your love with your soul, you show your excitement, happiness and caring to your dad when you say “Good morning, daddy.”
Now the inside of the burger, I have a vegetable and beef. I the beef, I put loving-heart to it. The heart is the center of your spirit. The loving-heart initiates all your loving actions and motivations. This is the real juicy part of the burger, and it makes the burger so juicy and tasty and nutritious.
Well, after you say good morning to your daddy, then you would like to give him a loving father’s day card which you spend time with loving heart preparing for it, because you really want to show love to him from your heart. “Love your father with your heart” means you really mean it, your love to your daddy is truthful and you are willing to do anything you can for your daddy. Children, do you know in your age what is the best way to show your loving heart to your daddy? Yeah, obedience is the best way. Remember show your obedience from your heart to your father with a willing heart.
Now accompanying the beef, I put a vegetable with a special ingredient – loving-mind to it, the vegetable working with the beef makes the burger healthy and nutritious and tasty.
Therefore, to love your daddy, you also need to love with your mind. The mind is always with your heart. It is your thought and intelligence. To love your father, you will use your brain to think what your daddy really like and need, and you can find a creative way to surprise your daddy. So at lunch time you may like to grill a special Father’s day burger to celebrate for him.
The last part of my grilled burger is the bottom bun with ingredient of “strength.” I put a strength to the bottom bun so that it can support all the burger without falling apart. And the whole burger is so tasty, yummy, and healthy, and looks so attractive and make people water at the mouth. Like to have a bite?
Well, in the same way, you would like to love your father with your best strength. That means that you will try your best to do so. Well, in the afternoon you may like to help your daddy to do the yard work- lawn mowing, watering the plants, etc. Do your best to help your daddy that he will feel happy and proud of you.
Remember you will like to love your daddy with your heart, with your soul, with your mind and with your strength not just only for the father’s day, you would do it everyday, all the time.
Who can tell me in the Bible who is the one showing the best example for loving his father. Yes, it is Jesus. Jesus did everything the heavenly father commanded Him with His best. Jesus never complained to the Heavenly Father. And finally, Jesus died on the cross to accomplish God the Father’s plan to save the humans from their sins. Well, it seemed it is a tragedy, right? Not really, we know that God the Father showed His love by raising Jesus from the dead.
The Bible teaches us and promise us that “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise.” What is the promise? You may enjoy a happy life on the earth.
Boys and girls, I know some of you may not always have a loving father with you, and you may feel hopeless in your life. I want to remind you that never be desperate. You still have a heavenly father who always loves you and cares for you faithfully. Our heavenly father has everlasting love to us, his love will never change and never fade. So, how is our heavenly father? Well, I am cooking especial pancakes with ingredients of some attributes of God, our heavenly father:
F – Faithful: Our heavenly father is faithful, He never breaks His promise
A – Almighty: Our heavenly father is almighty, who can do anything according His will.
T – Truthful: Our heavenly father never tells lies. We can fully trust in Him
H – Holy: Our heavenly father is holy and cannot allow any sins. He loves us but cannot tolerate any sins, therefore, He sent His only son Jesus to us to cleans our sins.
E – Eternal: Our heavenly father is eternal and has no ending. He is always there to love us.
R – Reachable: Our heavenly father is always there to listen to our prayers in Jesus. Just open your heart to pray and He will answer our prayer in His timing.
We have such a loving heavenly father, He loves us, cares for us, and He is always there to listen to our prayers. He gave us a command wanting Hid children to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.
Today we celebrate Father’s Day, show our love to our earthly father, and remember, no matter what happened to our earthly father, we still have a heavenly father, who is faithful, almighty, truthful, holy, eternal and reachable. And His love endures forever. 1 Peter 5:7 says: “ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Whenever you are down, pray to your heavenly father.
Each morning, the first thing, you will say “good morning, daddy!” to your father showing your loving heart to him. And you will also say “good morning, heavenly father!” through your prayer to God. So, always remember to say a morning prayer the moment you get up from your bed. Let’s review the verse Mark 12:30 together, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
父母亲的反思（Reflection and Follow-up)：
- 请跟您的儿女复习FATHER 每个字母（acronym)天父的特质，您可以带领您的儿女从圣经中找出经文支持这些特质吗？做父亲的若能学像天父，必能得儿女的敬重，您可以学习那几样呢？
- 请跟您的儿女复习 Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” 并用这经文回应神，为自己祷告也为您的儿女祷告。