This fourth week of advent we are focusing on love, specifically, God’s love for us, and the love we are to show each other.
The passage in this week’s study demonstrates what love is. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
And yet when Christmas comes, some of us struggle brutally as we are reminded of the dysfunctions, wrongs, and pain with family and those we know. It is often at this time, that we are confronted with a whole year of injustices and abuses that we feel have been committed against us that we have either avoided by walking or lashed out in retaliation.
With certain people we are not patient, we certainly do not want to be kind, we get easily angered, we have volumes larger than the Britannica encyclopedia detailing the wrongs done to us. Yet we are called to do this seemingly impossible task.
Without first being loved, the task of loving those who wrong us is impossible. As believers, we have been loved first which gives us the ability to love others. As believers, we must remember that even when we told God to his face that we hated Him, He still loved us. If we think about it, while the wrongs done to us are not excusable, how often do we commit those same wrongs with others?
Let us take time right now, this Christmas season to get in the face of the One who loves us unconditionally, and allow Him to show us what we need to see, and allow Him to guide us in our relationships with everyone around us in Godly love.
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