“This is Love”
The defining characteristic of God is love. God is love, it is who He is, not just what He has. Him having “steadfast love” (chesed) means that He will be faithful to His promises with tenderness, compassion, mercy, and care because it is His very nature to be that way. This is not just a statement that gets repeated over and over in Scripture without proof. Jesus is the proof that God loves us enough to do the hard part – take care of our sins. Jesus is the evidence of God’s steadfast love.
There may be times where you are unsure how God sees you. No matter what you have been told, or what you are feeling right now, the life of Jesus is proof that God loves you and wants you to know Him. This season of Advent is about paying enough attention to Jesus that we can see God’s steadfast love revealed through Him. Recognizing this love comes with a calling though: to love one another. Just like God revealed His love to us in Jesus, so we are to reveal that same love to each other.
In the season of giving and celebration, let’s remember what this is all anchored in. Celebrating Advent that leads us to Christmas is about being amazed by the birth and life of Jesus that transforms us to be people who show that same love to those around us. May we be the people who reveal God’s love to a dark and hurting world.
Scriptures
God Is Love
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
His Steadfast Love Endures Forever
A Psalm for giving thanks.
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
3 Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;[a]
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
5 For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.