More than once in these advent posts, we’ve remembered the Greatest Gift, the reason we celebrate Christmas.
“For to us a child is born, 
to us a son is given…” (Isaiah 9:6)
“’The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us.’)” (Matthew 1:23).
- Why would God send His Son?
- Why would God come to be with us?
- The answer is in this week’s advent candle: Love.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
An oft-repeated illustration explains we have to open the gift and receive it to experience its benefits.
*How do we open God’s gift and experience it?
John, the disciple who wrote so much about belief, also wrote about God’s love.
- He recorded Jesus’ conversation with His disciples when He reassured them of His love—as friends and so much more.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love” (John 15:9).
- Throughout this passage, the word “remain” means dwell, or in our everyday language, live.
- Stay connected to Jesus.1 Live with Him.
- Two chapters later, Jesus prayed for all future believers, those who believe the gospel message.
- Believers are those who are convinced not only that Jesus was a great teacher, but that He is the Messiah who was to come, sent by God.2
- The writer to Hebrew Christians expanded on the idea of what it means to believe in God.
“…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
- Our reward for seeking God is that we will find Him.
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
- And Jesus expanded on what it means to live in Him.
“that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:21-23).
- God expresses His love to us with a delight in those who choose to connect with Him through His Son.3
*What does it mean to “remain” in God and His love?
Much later in life, John wrote a letter to believers in various churches.
It’s as if he was the first to draw the illustration of a vertical arrow (representing our relationship to God) and a horizontal arrow (representing our relationships with others). John said,
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
- Delight in one another and in God.
- Do not neglect to love God and others.
- If you do not love, not only do you not know God, you expose yourself to spiritual death.4
- Those who live in God’s love have new spiritual life from God and are directed by love.5
*What does it mean to delight in God?
*How does our new spiritual life result in a life directed by love?
God provided an example for this challenge.
“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” (1 John 4:9).
- God showed His love in a tangible way.
- His goal: that we might spend our lives in Jesus, connected to Him.
- God wants to be in relationship with us.
*How can we connect with Jesus this week?
*How can we follow God’s example in our lives?
According to John, the key to God’s love in us is our love for one another; it’s a community thing.
“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 4:12).
A traditional prayer before communion refers to the idea of the “perfect” love expressed in this verse.
“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly [completely] love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”6
*How would you unpack the prayer above and which phrase would you focus on?
- To love God completely and perfectly is to be completely united as one.7
- Each advent candle draws us to prayer, to talk with God about what He wants us to learn.
This candle especially.
- We may not “delight in” everyone, but we can show God’s good will toward them, the love He showed all of us in the gift of Jesus.
*How would you describe the candle of love as the fourth in the series of advent focus words?
*How is our love from, with, and for God made complete?
*How can we love those who are difficult to “delight in”?
*How can we unwrap the gift of Jesus—love—and hand it to someone this week?
- Zodhiates, 579
- Zodhiates, 1161
- Zodhiates, 65
- Zodhiates, 68
- Zodhiates, 364, 373
- Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Book of Common Prayer. (Project Gutenberg,2009, 2021; Cambridge University Press, November,1912). www.gutenberg.org This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org.
- Zodhiates, 1373