This week we celebrate the second week of advent. Advent is from the Latin word for “coming”, or “to come” Each of the four Sundays in Advent are assigned one special focus or application: Hope, Love, Joy and Peace. In this second week of advent we look at Love.
The Bible tells us that God is Love. It isn’t just that He has love or shows us how to love, while this also may be true. When we say God is love we also acknowledge that it was love that both created the universe, our earth and mankind but also provided the atonement through Christ as God loved us. While most people immediately recognize John 3:16, here is another verse that tells of the love of God.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:7-12.)
At Christmas we are reminded by the Christ child of how accessible God has made himself to us. A baby is born in Bethlehem. This is no ordinary birth nor ordinary child for this is a the promised Messiah, the Emmanuel or “God with us”.
Love was born in Bethlehem. It is out the capacity of God’s love that mankind is redeemed and set free. The message of Christmas is love. In fact, the entire gospel including the prophecies of His birth, to the nativity, to the cross, to the resurrection, to the establishment of the Church and to his second coming is all and entirely about love.
In our ministry as Pastors and Christian leaders, we must continually teach that love is not only the end goal, it is also the very beginning of a relationship with God. Love is given but at the same time, God receives, deserves and demands our love.
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