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Love is in the Air
We have entered the Advent season and Christmas looms on the horizon, recalling to heart and mind the birth of our Savior. Christmas is a time when we remember that God loved and loves us in deed and in truth. God’s love was and is a down and dirty practical love – a love not afraid of sacrifice or evil. A love that loves loving. This is a costly, extravagant love, which spares no expense when it comes to loving us. It is this love of God, embodied in and by Jesus’ birth, life and death, becoming sin that we might become the righteousness of God, that has freed us from sin to live life in new and astounding ways, to be loved, to be love and to love.
Paul reminds us “it is for freedom that Christ set us free…You were called to freedom BUT do not use your freedom to indulge your sinful nature RATHER serve one another in love (Gal 5:1, 13).” This Christmas-love of God has been poured within our hearts, it is a love that we have been rooted and grounded in and it is a love, once embraced and internalized, (we love because God first loved us) that needs to be expressed in deed and in truth. Paul makes this clear when he writes; “ the ONLY thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.” Those are sobering and challenging words.
What if during this Advent season, as we remember the amazing love of God expressed in the gift of Jesus, we took time each day to explore our own life to see if this love is being birthed within us as it was birthed in and through Mary and embodied by Jesus?
Below are some questions to help you to examine your day. If you choose to do this please keep in mind this is about awareness and not condemnation – for there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ.
Questions for reflection
Before you begin pondering the following questions ask God to guide and direct your time – for God is gracious, much more gracious than we tend to be with ourselves.
Today how did my faith express itself in love in my relationships, encounters, circumstances, attitudes, and motivations, in what I did and what I chose not to do, in what I chose to say, and the things that I chose not to say?
If God shows you a time when your faith was not expressing itself in love ask God to give you insights regarding the why behind this – again this is about awareness and NOT condemnation – an awareness that leads to freedom. Also take time to celebrate those times that your faith did express itself in love. It is important to name and celebrate our growth into Christlikeness.
During this Advent and Christmas season may you know the love of God, demonstrated and embodied in the gift of Jesus, in ever deepening ways and may you be a channel of that same love to those around you in deed and in truth. Back to Food for Thought
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