1. Are there relationships in your life where you tend to be selfish?
  1. In what ways can you extend God’s selfless love to others?
  1. Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate expression of God’s selfless love. Have you experienced God’s selfless love by receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
  1. Ask God to guard your heart and to enable you to overcome temptation and to protect your body, emotions and spirit.
  1. Pray for God to teach you how to love selflessly.
  1. Pray for opportunities to talk about God’s selfless love to your family and friends.

Week 2:Selfless Love

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  1. What is your personal definition of purity?
  2. Do you consider yourself a giver or a taker? Why do you say so?
  3. Which romantic movie or TV series is your favorite and why?

A good title for Samson and Delilah’s story would be “Bad Romance.” Theirs is a relationship between two selfish people, each one out for what he or she could get. But real love is not selfish; it’s selfless. This selfless love is what God offers us.

Let’s see how selfish love compares to the love we receive from God.

  1. Selfish love deceives; selfless love protects.

And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? ...And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart...” (Judges 16:15a, 16-17a)

Samson’s fatal flaw was that he put his feelings first and acted based on them, which led to his downfall. Samson’s actions is a reflection of how the world teaches us to just “follow our heart” and go with what we feel. But feelings are deceptive and can lead to our destruction.

What does the Bible means when it says “love always protects” (1 Corinthians 13:7)?

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  1. Selfish love is changeable; selfless love is unchanging.

“Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her.... After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. (Judges 16:1, 4)

“...I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. (Jeremiah 31:3b)

Much like Samson’s “love,” the love that we see today is all about pursuit of happiness. But what makes us happy changes all the time. In Samson’s case, it changed with the women he saw around him. So a love based on happiness is unstable and untrustworthy.In contrast, God’s love is everlasting; it doesn’t change with the circumstance. It is the kind of love we can trust.

Why is it easy for many people to settle for what makes them happy when it comes to love?

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  1. Selfish love takes; selfless love gives.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Worldly love is selfish.It’s concerned about the “benefits” it can gain from the other person. While the world asks what it can get, God showed his love for us by generously giving. Delilah got her reward at the expense of Samson’s life; God gave us a reward we didn’t deserve at the expense of His Son’s life. Because of this selfless love, we can love others less selfishly, and with purity and holiness.

What does it mean to be pure and holy?

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