Tune My Heart, Episode 22
- Stacy Bishop
- Dec 20, 2024
- 3 min read
Happy Sunday, friend. As you prepare for worship this morning, let’s take a moment of quiet to invite God’s presence into your awareness today.
The fourth week of Advent is here and today’s focus is on love.
From a young age, one of the most moving verses of scripture about love to me has been this one.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called children of God!
And that is what we are!"
-1 John 3:1
I have always loved recognizing when a scripture is used in a song. I have music notes surrounding highlighted verses in my Bible every time I have encountered a scripture that I recognized as a song lyric, too. I remember when Steven Curtis Chapman’s song Speechless came out when I was probably a freshman in high school and this verse was quoted in it almost verbatim. His lyric says, “O how great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the sons and daughters of God.” The whole point of the song is that we are speechless in awe of God’s love and mercy and the fact that He saved us. That 1 John line in there leaves me speechless every time I try to sing it, because it brings me to tears.
So let’s just ponder on that today.
“O how great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the sons and daughters of God.”
There is no greater display of love than Jesus choosing to come to earth as a man so that He could grow up and die a death on a cross for our sins. And that all starts with His surrendering to be born as a baby. We don’t think much about it, but this was a choice, too. And I think we have to celebrate Christmas with that tension between a beautiful thing of a baby being born and that same baby growing up to face the horrors of the cross. It’s beautiful and it’s ugly. It’s the most selfless thing a person could do. So as we celebrate the joy of His birth, let us also remember the reverence and gratitude we have for the cross.
“O how great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the sons and daughters of God.”
And that is what we are, friends. As you go about this week, let the love of Jesus inspire you to live as a deeply loved person who can also deeply love others.
Let’s pray.
God,
Thank You for the beautiful gift of Jesus. Help us to never lose sight of the cross as we celebrate the birth. Help us to live out of the overflow of that love that was so freely given to us. Help us to rest in the hope, peace, joy and love of Jesus and these gifts that He brought to us. Help us to seek out opportunities to be people of hope, peace, joy and love to those around us who desperately need it. There are never enough thank yous to express our gratitude, God, but may our lives display our thankfulness today. It’s in Jesus’ holy name we pray. Amen.
A printable/downloadable version of today's devo can be found here:
Comments