Advent 2025 Love

Advent Week 4 – Love

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Hello, my friend…

Today we approach the fourth week of Advent. The subject we are considering this week is love. We have gotten so used to the whole idea of love, yet we still struggle with it. We often don’t love ourselves; therefore, it is hard for us to love others. We don’t understand that God loves us – has, in fact, loved us from before the foundation of the world. We tell those around us we love them. We tell our friends we love them. Yet do we really understand the meaning behind the word we use?

I won’t even get onto all the different words used in scripture for love. For example, there is the lowest form of love – eros, or erotic love. This is the most animalistic, humanistic form of love which often manifests as lust. Then there is brotherly love – the basic care and concern for our fellow humans. Familial love relates to our feelings toward blood relatives and others for whom we have deep concern. Lastly, we have the type of love noted in our verse today – agape. This is godly love, a love that transcends human love.

Paul wrote that God extended to us His love while we were yet sinners, foreigners to the kingdom of God, again – before He even created the world. John wrote in Revelation 13:8 that Jesus is the Lamb of God Who was slain before the foundation of the world. In other words, before you and I even existed God made a way of salvation available to all of us. He knew that we would be born in sin, we would choose a life of sin, but that those who were foreordained to be saved would, one day, seek a way of redemption from that sin. We had not yet chosen to love Him, we had not even sinned at that point – He just knew we would, by our very nature, be separated from Him. That is why we are told that salvation and grace is a gift from God – not something we earned – that no person can boast (of his or her goodness and entitlement).

As we turn into this season of the Advent of Christ as Immanuel, let us stop and consider this. God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, chose to leave behind the splendor and glory of heaven to clothe Himself in humanity, make Himself susceptible to the weaknesses and sinful nature of mankind, and reveal to us His divine plan to restore us to full fellowship and identity with Him. We read in 1 John 3:1, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” Behold, what quality of love the Father has extended to us! He came down to our level when we couldn’t get up to His.

In our text today, Paul wrote that God put His love alongside us, He established and exhibited His love toward us – He proved His love to us by showing it while we were yet living according to the spirit of this world. Paul wrote, in another place, that we were once dead in our sins – we were, in essence, living corpses – animated by the (evil) spirits of this world. Even in that condition, God extended His love to us, quickening us (giving us life enough) through the working of His Holy Spirit, that we might recognize and respond to Him.

It is my prayer that you will (if you haven’t already) respond to this great love of God and allow Him to breathe His life into you, that you will allow Him to restore deep and eternal fellowship to you, that you will accept His free gift that we celebrate this time of the year specifically. If you are already a child of God, I encourage you to remember and recommit your life to Him. As He gave His Son for you, so may you make yourself available to be poured out to those around you as a living sacrifice to Him, showing them His love and mercy. May you be so filled with His Spirit this Christmas that you are re-energized and recharged to live according to the plans and power of Christ living in you.

Be blessed.