Sunday’s Blessing – 12/21/2025 – 4th Sunday of Advent – Love

Sunday’s Blessing – 12/21/2025 – 4th Sunday of Advent – Love

The past few weeks I’ve heard several different people comment about their pastors quoting pop lyrics in their sermons. Strangely enough, some of the most accurate words come from a Beatles song called, All You Need is Love. The strongest emotion humans can experience is love. This theme is at the very heart of the celebration of Advent.

The fourth and final Sunday of Advent focuses on Love. Scripture declares that God is Love! An Amy Grant song phrased the meaning of Advent this way: “Love has come For the world to know As the wisemen knew Such a long time ago. And I believe that the angels sang That hope had begun When the God of Glory Who is full of mercy Sent His Son.” Advent begins with the focus of Hope, followed by Peace and Joy. The full experience of embracing Christ, the Messiah, is to know Love. Paul put it this way saying, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8a ESV)

I’m so glad I finally learned the difference between Christmas and Advent. After seeing the blazing rhetoric and vitriolic criticism from those claiming to know Christ, toward anyone who “took Christ out of Christmas” totally missed the powerful truth they have available to them. Instead of going to war over the commercially motivated celebration of Christmas (the holiday was created for commercial purposes) they have the ancient celebration of Advent, purely centered on the truth of the birth of our Messiah, Jesus, born of a virgin, to save the world from sin. 

Christmas (the commercial celebration) is carnal (meaning of the flesh) but is not sinful or evil. It’s like going to Disney World. There is nothing spiritual about it, but it is not sin. But Advent is purely spiritual. Instead of burning so much energy trying to spiritualize a secular event (Christmas) let’s spend our time exposing others to the celebration of Advent. It is quite possible that by introducing others to the source of true Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, we can bring others back to the Father by allowing them to get to know His Son!

Today’s Blessing:

May you come face to face with the Love of God, embodied the Baby of Bethlehem

So you can immerse your hurts and pains in the healing balm of Christ

Restoring you in every way back to the way the Creator intended

And be the Salt and Light to your world and beyond

May the reality of Advent fill you with Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love

So you may keep your eyes and heart heavenward

Following the lighted path provided by the Comforter

To lead you into all that the Creator has planned for you

Sunday’s Blessing – 02/09/2025 – Valentine’s Week

Sunday’s Blessing – 02/09/2025 – Valentine’s Week

More is said about “love” during the next few days than just about the rest of the year combined. Mostly, it is for marketing all the gifts of chocolate, roses, jewelry, and lingerie, candlelight dinners, romantic getaways, and heart-shaped everythings. In the proper context, there is no problem with any of these things, but none of it represents what love should be about.

The issue is with our language. We use “love” for everything. We love our car. We love our house. We love our sports team. We love to take walks in the park. We love our children. We love our spouse. We love our friends. English makes us very lazy in expressing emotion. “Love” is an easy out. After expressing our feelings for just about everything by saying we “love it,” it leaves us at a loss when we truly want to tell someone we deeply care for them.

Other languages make this much easier. Greek, for instance, has eight distinct words which English interprets as love. They are eros (erotic, romantic, passionate), philia (friendship), ludus (carefree, playful), philautia (self-love), pragma (long-term, committed, compassionate), storge (deep, pure, long-term – familial), mania (obsessive), and agape (selfless, unconditional). It's easy to identify how the English word for love has been so widely applied. That’s why there is so much confusion introduced when someone says, “I love you.”

This Valentine’s Day, choose other words besides “I love you” to convey how you feel toward others. It can make all the difference.

Now, for today’s blessing.

May you experience the pure love of the Father (agape – selfless, unconditional)

So you may in turn show it to others

Because you are His workmanship, created for good works

Sent to manifest God’s love in your world

May you find language to express your feelings properly to others

So they may understand how much you care for them

Sparking in them a reciprocity which can grow into something beautiful

Be it a friendship or lifetime relationship

May you draw strength from and increase your capacity for true love

By pressing into your relationship with the Father

Drawing His love-life into yours to overwhelm and wash away any hurts

So that only your healed, made-whole self remains

May you begin to reap a harvest of true love

As you allow relational seeds to be planted in this new heart

Created by the softening of grace and forgiveness

So that you become a flourishing life-giving fragrant bouquet of love

Sunday’s Blessing – 12/22/2024 – Forth Sunday of Advent – Love

Sunday’s Blessing – 12/22/2024 – Forth Sunday of Advent – Love

May the Love of the Father, embodied in the only begotten Son

Show you how to live, by giving you capacity to love others

Giving you something to give away as you encounter those in your world

In order to bring them back to the Father

May this Love, born of a virgin, sent from the Father, rebirth your spirit

To make you alive by the Spirit of God Who empowers you

Enabling you to love others beyond your ability to do so

By showing them the Father’s love in you

May the culmination of HOPE, PEACE, and JOY be realized in LOVE

Just as the prophets of old gave you HOPE of a coming Messiah

It manifested in PEACE through the Babe in Bethlehem

Bringing JOY to your world, making room to receive LOVE