It’s Christmas again! It seems like only yesterday that we celebrated this wonderful season last year. Wow! A lot has changed since this time last year. Schools were closed and kids went to school at home. When schools opened, some chose to remain home. COVID-19 made many of us sick and most of us got past it, even if there are some lingering effects. Most of us have been vaccinated and some of us got it again. Some of us went to heaven. My sympathy goes out to those who love and miss them. Some of us still wear masks and there appears to be an upsurge in the pandemic. Inflation is making us all uneasy, especially at the gas pump and grocery store. Yet, one thing never changes. God loves us and always will.
Christmas reminds us that the one constant in our lives is God’s love for us. No matter how much we suffer, or how much we sin. God loves us! How much? So much that when the time was right, Jesus, the Son of God, became a little baby so he could be with us not only in Spirit, but in the flesh. He not only loves us, but he is “in love” with us. I don’t know about you, but when I really love someone, I want to be with them all the time. I want to know them and what it is like to be them: how they think, how they feel, what motivates them, how to serve them. I can’t imagine my life without intimately knowing them.
It is God’s will that we exist. God is love. In a very real way, God loves us into existence! When we experience his love for us there is only one thing to do, love him in return. The best way to do that is live our purpose in life. He made us to know, love and serve him and to be happy with him forever. When we experience his unconditional, unending, overwhelming, and overpowering love for us, we can’t help but let that love spill out on to others. God has planted his very nature within us. “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him…”(Genesis 1:27) You are a mirror reflection of God!
My hope at this Christmas Season is to take some time off to ponder how we are made from love, to love. Can we not take a few days to set aside our differences to let our true selves, made in divine image, Love, to recognize the immense love that God has for us and to share that love with others? Whether conservative or liberal, republican or democrat, male or female, boss or worker, believer or non-believer, sexual orientation, race, or wealthy or poor, we all have been created in love by the One who loves us. Let’s look for the divine in each other. Merry Christmas.
“May the Lord bless and keep you. May He let His light shine upon you and give you His peace.”
Sunday, December 22, 2024
