Throughout history, countless stories, poems, songs, plays, and books have been created to depict the human experience of love. As the greatest of all feelings and emotions, we have this strong desire to express how deeply and how powerfully we are affected by love.
Of all the characteristics attributed to God: faithful, powerful, glorious, merciful, all knowing, good, beautiful, and on and on, there is no other characteristic more essential to describe God than Love.
God is love.
He is, at His essence, Love. He doesn’t merely exhibit love to us or show us love or share His love. He is Love.
God’s highest purpose is to show us how much He loves us. He longs to communicate just how deep His love is for us. Throughout Scripture, God describes His Love for us through a variety of ways. He reveals Himself to us through relationships that we can understand from a human point of view and experience:
God’s love is like a Father waiting for His prodigal son Luke 15
God’s love is like a Mother hen gathering chicks- Matt 23
God’s love is like a Husband knowing his wife- Eph 5:32
God’s love is like a Lover in the Song of Solomon
God’s love is like a Rejected Spouse in Hosea
God’s love is like Shepherd finding sheep- Matt 18:12
God’s love is like a best friend- John 15:15
God’s love is like a Kinsmen Redeemer as in the book of Ruth
God’s love is like a Groom waiting for his bride in Matt 9
The possibilities are endless of how God reveals Himself in order for us to understand how much He loves us. There are no lengths He won’t go to communicate His love for us.
God’s ultimate revelation of Love.
The ultimate revelation of God’s love came through the advent of Jesus becoming human, as one of us, to reveal Himself to us. Then, He sacrificed Himself for us so that we could be restored back to a righteous status with God
In John 4:9-10 it says, God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
No song, no story could ever be enough to fully express the height, depth, and width of how much God loves us. The expanse of His Love reaches to the heavens and beyond.
As we light the candle of Love, this third week of Advent reminds us of the overwhelming love God has for each of us and to remember that God’s pure, passionate love was why He sent us a Savior.
As we prepare our hearts for Christmas, we look forward to the time when we are in His Presence for all eternity and Love is made complete! Make room in your heart for God’s ultimate revelation of Love!
~Amy
Still catching up on all the Advent readings? Read them here: Prepare the Way, HOPE, and PEACE
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