"I love baseball!" "I love a good pizza." "I love finding a bargain." "I love it when a plan comes together."We hear people say it all the time. I could add my own items to the list:
I love vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and peanuts. I love a good mystery novel. I love sci-fi movies. I love watching my kids have fun together. I love my wife.
It amazes me how many ways we use that word.
Love.
Don't get me wrong... it's a great word. I just think we misuse it sometimes. We use it to express how we feel about things from the mundane to the profound. I worry that we may cheapen what it is all about by how freely and - to be honest - flippantly we toss the word around.
There is a vast difference between how I feel about ice cream, sci-fi, and my wife. When I tell her that I love her, there is a depth there that is unique, abiding, and truer than any connection I have to dessert or movies.
What do we mean we we say "I love..."? How do we define it?
This third week of Advent is all about Love. God's love... what it means for us... and how it can transform our lives and our love.
God's love is the most profound reality in life (aside from the reality of God's existence, that is). And, God's people have been resting in and relying on it from the beginning of time.
The Psalmist reminded the People of Israel - "But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him..." - Psalm 103:17
God spoke through the Prophet to give His people hope even in the midst of trying times - "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." - Jeremiah 31:3
In this season of the year, we remember the amazing lengths to which God's love would go for us as a continuation of that same faithfulness - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son..." - John 3:16
Without a doubt, the Love of God is the greatest gift - Christmas or otherwise - that anyone could ever receive. If you remember nothing else this Christmas, remember that God has already sent you The Gift - His Son - the embodiment of God's love.
And, just like when we were kids and couldn't wait to tell our friends about the great stuff that we unwrapped on Christmas morning, let's share this Gift with our family and friends. And remember, they not only need to hear about it from you... they need to experience it in you too!
"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." - 1 John 4:11
May this gift of God's love light your life in all the days ahead...
On the Potter's Wheel.
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