Advent - Love
This year we begin our Advent journey with love. Love is a word we hear so often, and in Christianity we hear “God is love and love is God”, even the world uses this phrase. Love is often a misused word that is applied in the incorrect context and at inappropriate times.
Why is it that the apostles, and even Jesus himself, so often urge us to love? It is because at the center of it all, God really is love and because He is love everything that He created and everything that He does is a representation of His love for humanity.
The Apostle John so easily expresses this in John 3:16, a verse we are all very familiar with -
"For God so LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son..."
Why do we begin Advent with Love? Because Love is at the root, and should be at the centre of what drives us. When we truly experience God's love and when we open our hearts to it, we are transformed.
Paul puts it so perfect in Ephesians 3:17b - 19
"...And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Imagine the potential the body of Christ would have if we all grasp the immensity of Christ's love for us. Imagine how effective the Church would be if we acted in the same Spirit and in love!
As I think about this, I am also reminded of some of Jesus' final words to his disciples in John 13:34-35 -
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Are we truly showing the world that we are His disciples? Are we truly loving one another in this way, and are we truly grasping the entirety of His love so that we can be effective vessels? Individually, but even more so as a body?
Many have been turned away from Christianity and church in general because they have witnessed and experienced false love. I know this may sound harsh, but anything outside of a definition of love we find in 1st Corinthians 13:4-8a, is not genuine.
It is our responsibility as children of God, to love each other with genuine love first and through that love, show the world what true love really is and to help them understand the meaning of “God is love”.
May this advent season help us to reflect on the love of God, to truly grasp it, and begin to love as we aught. Because with love we see others differently, we treat them differently, we hope differently and we begin to reflect Christ more and ourselves less.
"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." - 1st Peter 4:8