“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:7-11
As a father and a grandfather, I love my children and grandchildren. If there is ever a time when I am called to give up my life to save theirs, there would be no hesitation. Yet, as devoted as I am to my family, my love for them is imperfect. The problem is not a lack of affection, but rather that I am a fallible human…I sin, I err, and I fail. Lest I feel totally hopeless, God continues to provide His perfect example for me to learn from. When God the Father sent Christ into the world to live among us, He showed us what true love is. The celebration of Christmas is a celebration of the purest form of love: love that is sacrificial; love that freely given; and love that must be shared.
John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son and 1 John 3:16 tells us that our understanding of love comes from the fact that Christ laid down His life for ours. These two verses clearly point out the sacrificial nature of God’s love in that both the God the Father and Christ our Savior sacrificed greatly as an act love in order to provide us with righteousness and to reconcile us to Themselves.
Not only was this love sacrificial, but it was also lavished upon us (1 John 3:1). Nothing was held back. The Father gave His son; Christ was rejected, tortured, publically humiliated, bore our sins, endured the Father forsaking Him and gave up His life. But it doesn’t end there because God, being rich in mercy, extended His love to us while we were still sinners…while we were dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:4-5 and Romans 5:8). Holy God lavished His love on undeserving sinners because He was rich in mercy. There truly is no greater love than that. It is the finest example of love and the love that we celebrate at Christmas time.
As great a gift as God’s love is, we can’t keep it to ourselves… we must share it with others. In fact John tells us that we are commanded to share it (1 John 4:11 and John 13:34-35). The love that we share is not merely the act of declaring the gospel so that others may enjoy this same love, but it also calls us to live lovingly. God, who is rich in mercy, calls us love not only to those who are lovely but the unlovely as well. Holy God who extended the greatest and purest form of love to sinful man is the one who asks us to: forgive our enemies; pray for those who despitefully use us; be patient and kind; bear, hope and endure all things; rejoice in truth; avoid bragging, arrogance, and acting unbecomingly; not seek our own, be provoked or take into account a wrong suffered; and to never rejoice in unrighteousness. As hard it is may be at times, when we are obedient, we share the love of God with our fellow man and draw closer to Him. As Christ put it: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
As we celebrate the incarnation of our Savior, let us take the time to truly appreciate the enormity and purity of God’s love as well as its sacrificial nature. Let us also readily allow that love to flow through us to those around us…the lovely and the unlovely alike that we may proclaim Christ through our actions.
Let all that you do be done in love.
Will