Fourth Advent Sunday: Contemplate love!

 

The Advent Season already considered hope, peace, and joy. On the final Advent Sunday, it contemplates love.

Christ coming to us reveals Gods love for his people and for his creation.

 

1 John 4:9-10: 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.

 

The most important idea in these verses is that God showed his love. The Biblical understanding of love is that it is shown in actions. It is not so much what we feel, as what we do that is important when we try to understand what love is.  This word “love” is often used in the Scriptures.

 

We know God loves us because we know what he did for us. He created us to have fellowship with him, and when we strayed, he saved us and when we lost the battle against evil, he conquered for our sake.

We know we love God when we worship, serve, praise, and want to obey God and when we live in awe of our Lord, because we know that he loved us first. Our actions in reaction to his love, show that we love God too.

We love our fellow Christians when we act as brothers and sisters towards one another, and we know we love our neighbour when we act towards them in the way that we expect others to treat us too.

 

Jesus is the demonstration of the love God has for us. He lived and ministered to reveal who God truly is. Jesus lived and acted in a way that showed us how God loves us: Jesus touched the “unclean”, he respected the rejected, he delivered the captives, he saved the lost and he healed the sick. Jesus showed the mercy, grace, love, compassion, patience, and kindness of God.

 

This is the love we, as his children and witnesses, should show the world.

We hear a lot about the Christmas spirit and that this is a season for giving. We are more patient and show more compassion than we usually do. This is a good thing, and it makes the season of Advent and the celebration of Christmas a most special time for so many who are in ominous need to be loved.

 

But, as we await of Christmas and of the fullness of the complete and final coming of the Kingdom of Christ – we should prepare the way for the King by making practical, Christian love much more than a seasonal thing. It is supposed to be our Christian lifestyle displayed always and it continuously shows God’s love.

 

God loved us in the coming of his Son, in human form, for our redemption.

So, now we should show his love that others too may know his salvation and care. True Christian love is when we show through every aspect of our lives that God loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

In humble sacrificial living, we do!