Transcription

 

[Pastor Heather Johnson]

Welcome to Bridgeway Christian Church's Daily Advent Prayer. My name is Heather Johnson and I have been a part of the Bridgeway community for 11 years. Today is Sunday, December 21st, and on Sundays during Advent we pray through the weekly theme.

This week our theme is love. When we think about love at Christmas we often picture warm feelings, family gatherings, meaningful gifts, and traditions with friends. But scripture invites us into something far deeper.

Love is not just a feeling that we experience, it is a person that we receive. The Bible says it plainly in 1st John 4, 8 and 9. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

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. This is the heart of Christmas, the love of God revealed to us through Jesus. Not simply that we feel loved, but that God himself came near so that we might truly live through him.

At Christmas we celebrate that that love came to us in the form of a baby. Before we ever responded to God, he initiated. Before we ever loved him back, he loved us first.

And the love he brings is not vague or sentimental. Scripture gives us a clear picture of the character of his love in 1st Corinthians 13. Not as a wedding reading or even a behavioral ideal, but as a portrait of God's heart towards us.

God's love is patient with us. God's love is kind towards us. His love does not keep a record of our wrongs and his love bears with us, believes in us, hopes for us, and never gives up on us.

This is the love that Advent invites us to receive. Pray with me. Lord, help me to understand your patience so I know that you're not disappointed with me when I mess up.

Thank you for your kindness towards me, even when I am short-tempered or rude. Thank you that you forgive me again and again and again, even when I promise myself this time's going to be different. Thank you for believing in me, for holding out hope for my growth, and for always taking the first step toward me, even when I'm actively avoiding you and your ways.

I pray now for my friends and neighbors who carry a distorted picture of you only as a judge, an accuser, or a tyrant. Replace those false images with the true love revealed at Christmas, vulnerable, sacrificial, merciful, and near. Correct our wrong theology and increase our awareness of your inexplicable joy-producing love.

Teach us not to talk about love this season, but to receive it deeply, be transformed by it, and share it freely. Amen.