September 6, 2022

Hello Advent Family,

If someone was to describe you with a single word what would it be? When I was in high school my nickname was Bull. It was because of a motion I made with my foot before every pitch I threw but if I’m honest it probably described my personality a bit. I was driven and stubborn a little bit bull headed. I would hope that others would describe me with different words today. The Bible is clear about how it would describe God with one word – Love. It says it several times throughout scripture but in particular this passage in I John 4. Let’s look at it together today.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

God is love. So simple and yet so profound. If we are called as followers of Jesus to represent Him here on earth perhaps the one word we should be known by is also love. The way we love each other. The way we love our neighbors. Even the way we love our enemies or the “other”. I can still sometimes act like high school Bull. I hope and pray that more often I am a person of love and that we all are people known for our love.

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave


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