A Prayer For Advent: Love In Action (1 John 3:11-19)
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:17-18
Lord as we enter this season of Advent we ask you to help us prepare our hearts, to ready them for the worship and celebration of your life and the impact that it is to have on our lives and the lives of others. Help us today to reflect on the love that brought you from heaven to Earth to be born as a baby, the creator becoming creation for the blessing and benefit of all mankind. The Old Testament is filled with words that tell us about your love but you knew from the beginning that words were not enough, that words alone were not the path to help us to know your love. You took love to a place it needed to be, you took it to actions and showed the truth behind all the words that had been spoken before. You left your throne in heaven, your place of honor and elevation in order to come to us in a humbled manger and to live among us, to experience us, to let us experience you, to teach us with both words and actions and eventually to stand in accusation, be beaten, die on a cross in our place and rise again to show us the hope of the cross and your love. You did all of this because of your love for us, because of your desire to see us restored to a right relationship with you, a relationship you created for us to have from the beginning of time. Lord may we live each day in a desire to imitate the love you showed and may we use our lives, our actions to show others that same kind of love. Help us not to be so focused on ourselves, on our needs, on our struggles, on our lives. May we not think ourselves better than others or our needs more important that we fail to love others by not being there for them and loving them as you would love them if you were walking the Earth today. May we be your hands that help others in love, may we be your arms that hold and hug in comfort and support, may we be your feet that go to others in their need, may we be active in the lives of others showing them love because we were first loved by you. Christmas can become a busy time where we talk about loving others, we talk about getting together with others, we talk about doing good but help us Lord to put time aside to not just think and speak word of love but to put those words into action as you did for us on that first Christmas night. May we be prepared to give the gift of love by using our lives to bless others.
AMEN
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