For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” 1 John 3:11.
You’ve heard the old song, ‘Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage? ” I’m sure we all have. It’s an old one, but a fun, little song, that my grandparents sang for light-hearted fare. Love makes the world go round.
Love? It’s a classic! It’s a relevant theme that has flourished through the ages and never goes out of style. God designed it for good and blesses His people with it, but sadly the world cheapens it, flaunts it, and uses it in the wrong way.
God is the author and creator of it because He is love and His Word is a love letter to His people, whom He loves with an unconditional love. A love that transcends far beyond the ecstasy of the physical love and marriage the world knows! His love letter is our guidebook for this journey of life and our defense against the enemy. Hebrew 4: 12 says,
“It’s alive and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
His love letter is a message of hope to the hopelessly alone and lost and dead in trespasses and sin. His is a message of Truth for those deceived by the enemy and victory for the down and out.
Our verse is an awesome word from John, who reminds us of the underlying love theme in God’s word from the very beginning and the very foundation of our salvation. It’s so easy to lose sight of it because life happens, people hurt people and love becomes difficult if we take our focus off of Christ. John knew it well and goes on to warn his hearers not to be like Cain, whose jealousy led him to murder Abel, his brother. Let’s take care not to crush the spirit of another because of envy or jealousy in our ministries, families and places of work or school.
Love and forgiveness go together somewhat like love and marriage. One will follow the other in this Christian walk. At least it should if we live to bring glory to God, the author of love. To love and forgive is a difficult action when someone has taken from us and left us wounded, yet it’s a command and true evidence of Christ indwelling us! It’s not about sending our forgiveness recklessly out into oblivion but, rather, we place it in God’s hands. We turn it over to the all-knowing, righteous judge! The one who says,
“I’ll take care of that for you, just leave it with me!
It’s a comforting thought to think about our forgiveness being placed in God’s hands. Remind yourself of that the next time there is a need to forgive and love another. His message is clear and we can be victorious over the pain, hurt, and rejection. Let’s forgive to free ourselves and give it to God to deal with because it’s the age-old message and the one we’ve heard from the beginning of time…. “We should love one another.”
Ahh, so, as we move into the second week of our Advent season and continue on in our preparation with Hope in our soul, we light the candle of ‘peace’ in our anticipated waiting. With so much going on in this world of ours, it’s hard to fathom any kind of peace anywhere, isn’t it? For sure not in this wide world is there any kind of peace and certainly not in ours!
Today, there’s most likely a whole bunch of us just aching for some kind of peace of mind that everything is ok and will be ok. Luke 2:14 tells us of a host of heavenly angels singing their song to shepherds, to announce His birth and share a glorious message of calm assurance! It was a powerful yet tender message of a Savior’s birth and about His sweet peace resting on His people in this unsettled earth of ours.
Glory to God in the Highest, because on that holy night a Savior came to gift us not only with Hope but with a divine PEACE and bring it close to our hearts, our minds, and into the very depths of our needy souls and selves.
So, in a day where so much unrest defies our normal life and wraps its icy fingers around our comfort zones, and at a time when world peace is at an all-time low, there is still the option of a sweet peace that passes all understanding!
Peace, ahh, don’t we need it in these days of so much uncertainty? It’s ours to step into and claim even when so many voices protest loudly and when so much is reeling out of control.
I’m so thankful it’s really there all around us all wrapped up in our Trust in the one Savior of the world. We need to step into it and just believe! It’s in our complete trust and obedience that our peace takes root. Pure, simple TRUST in Him shuts out the fear of the unknown! It cancels out the worry of what’s next and quiets the noise of chaos, because, as His child, we can know He holds us and our stuff, close to Himself as He whispers sweet peace to our soul, and it’s so lovely
