”Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us. And he has given us his Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that he lives in us and that we live in him.“
If Holy Spirit lives in us as a result of our faith in Jesus, then love should be the evidence in our lives. I feel like this time we are in right now leading into Christmas is supposed to be a time of personal reflection, prayer and recalibration. Many of us have been so consumed with life and with the elections that it’s time to get quiet and spend time with the Lord. For me it is a time to make some adjustments so that I can make sure I’m on the right track -- and there’s no bigger indicator for whether I’m on the right track than how I respond to and engage the people around me -- especially in my family and work. Some good questions to ask in light of this passage are, am I operating from a place of love? Are my responses and reactions to my family ones that make them feel loved? I hope this passage serves an encouragement to carve out some time to spend with the Lord and make some adjustments, so we can be operating from love in these weeks leading into Christmas.
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