For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will–  to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

Let the beauty of God’s creative miracle wash over you today.  Advent is calling you back to LOVE. 

In LOVE He created everything.  Let Him recreate in you… the wonder of it all.

He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:2)

All the way back before time, love was a relationship.  Not something to be seen with the human eye, but from God’s perspective, filling the blackness of any void we might have perceived.  He filled it with Himself.  With His glorious character because God is love.

 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)

If this is the case, why do humans in general and Americans as a particularly materialistic sampling, insist upon assigning a material frame eclipsing any relationship of love?

After watching all the Black Friday events of people hurting each other—for what?  A TV.  Really.  An X-box? In the scope of eternity, that will never last.  None of this stuff will and yet it distracts us from the love that has been there all along.

The LOVE that has been there—as a relationship—since the beginning beckons us to wake up regarding our priorities and our loves.  We cannot see Him in eternity past, but His LOVE is still vibrant and powerful and fills a spiritual dimension we cannot know this side of heaven.  Is this the LOVE you know?

Let’s begin our exploration of Gospel of John and see Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up In-Person.  Read and ponder:

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Read that verse again—and let this thought sink in:

There is nothing material there.

It seems to be a void.  You can’t see the Word unless it’s in print or in another form, such as braille.  You can’t hear the Word unless it’s spoken.  You can’t see God who is Spirit.

If you or I had been eyewitnesses transported by a magical time-machine or Major Tom’s “little tin can” to this moment, there would have been nothing to see.

No wispy gasses. No grains of chemicals. No asteroids. No stars. No light.

“Ground Control to Major Tom

 Commencing countdown, engines on

 Check ignition and may God’s love be with you”

It’d be lonelier than an astronaut floating in the silence and the stars like Major Tom.  I say lonelier because Major Tom had Ground Control until his circuits went dead, his ship, and the stars.  You or I would be floating truly alone in a blackness of total nothingness surrounding us if what we were to see was truly all there was. 

Yet this nothingness is what every idea about beginnings must grapple with.

Interestingly, the human mind will superimpose its own patterns upon what it lacks—if we are placed in a sensory-deprived environment for as little as 15 minutes.   And yet, had we been transported back to that time with no memories to form hallucinations, it would have appeared to be the scariness of nothingness and the machinations of our own minds would have had no fuel because there were not even thoughts to rely upon to create our own comfort.

We couldn’t perceive anything to give us comfort.  And while it is true that there was Nothing Material, it doesn’t mean that there was nothing at all.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

The Word was there and God was there.  Not as a figment of our sensory-deprived minds but as an unseen reality, invisible to our human senses.

LOVE was actively present even though not at all a material thing.  It was a powerful, life-giving force enjoyed by God Himself, and an expression of His character. 

Ponder again this beginning for Christians and take a moment to answer the following questions:

• Why do so many people try to turn love into something material. particularly at Christmas?
• The relationship of LOVE in the Godhead was enjoyed before there was anything from which we might have derived any comfort.  How has the necessity of seeing replaced believing for way too many of us?
• How does this begin to set the stage for the necessity of LOVE showing up so that we’d be able to see the Word and see the Father by looking at Jesus?

Take a moment to watch this video on YouTube.  Try to watch it in silence to get the full effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuT0tC109tc&feature=youtube_gdata

Then ask yourself the following questions to prepare yourself to embrace Advent:

• Have you ever thought about Jesus  (while He was with God in the beginning) having all the fullness of LOVE within the Trinity?  What does this mean for you?
• Before Creation, did He need to come in order for LOVE to be present everywhere?
• How do you feel about in the total void before Creation, LOVE yet existed?
• What did Jesus gain by coming here?  What did He give up?
• Philippians 2: 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

To the voice in our heads that tells us to run after all kinds of things we really don’t need, we silence that stress by realizing that there are many wants in life but only a few genuine needs.  Experience Godly contentment by prayerfully discovering the difference.

Thinking of all the things for which we can be thankful today.  Create your own list or adapt it from this beloved hymn and sing the refrain and verses:

 Lord of all, to Thee we raise, This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of the earth For the glory of the skies, For the love which from our birth Over and around us lies.

For the beauty of each hour, Of the day and of the night, Hill and vale, and tree and flower, Sun and moon, and stars of light.

For the joy of ear and eye, For the heart and mind’s delight, For the mystic harmony Linking sense to sound and sight.

For the joy of human love, Brother, sister, parent, child, Friends on earth and friends above, For all gentle thoughts and mild.

For Thy Church, that evermore Lifteth holy hands above, Offering up on every shore Her pure sacrifice of love.

For the martyrs’ crown of light, For Thy prophets’ eagle eye, For Thy bold confessors’ might, For the lips of infancy.

For Thy virgins’ robes of snow, For Thy maiden mother mild, For Thyself, with hearts aglow, Jesus, Victim undefiled.

For each perfect gift of Thine, To our race so freely given, Graces human and divine, Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.

 Lord of all, to Thee we raise, This our hymn of grateful praise.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.  (Colossians 3:17)

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. (John 1:16)

When you start to feel stressed out about something, begin to count your blessings.  Nothing shakes stress out of your heart like remembering the blessings that God has already bestowed on you.  No matter where life finds you today, there are still things which are gifts of grace, one blessing after another.

Luke 10:38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I found myself this morning with race horses in my brain, running wild, reins flying behind them, and no one’s hands holding them to get control over them as they stampeded over my emotions, my nerves, and yes, my thoughts.  As they were dragging me off to the Land of Panic, I thought to myself, “Why do I do this?”

Do you feel that way at the holidays?  So much to do and only ___ days before Christmas?

Whoa!  Rein those horses in!

Well, I gave myself a few moments in the Divine Time Out Corner called prayer.  Ironically, the busier we are, the more we need the priorities and perspective that come from sitting at the feet of Jesus.  Take a few moments, trust me: You have time.  Lay all your dreams for the day ahead at the feet of Jesus and ask Him to help you sort them by His priorities.  Some things, let’s face it, are just stuff we layer onto His priorities and it’s our things He’s not obligated to make sure happen the way we want them to.  His priorities are ones He’ll fulfill.

Take some time to pray. 

De-Stress yourself by gaining Jesus’ priorities and Kingdom perspective. You’ll be glad you did.

I am pleased to announce the Advent Devotional Series for 2013 “Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up In-Person.”  In the Person of Jesus Christ, that is.

It is far too easy to let the holidays—the secular term for the holy season of Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas—go by with very little thought as to what this time of year would be like had LOVE not shown up.

If Jesus didn’t become flesh. 

If He didn’t leave heaven behind to walk this earth as the man Jesus of Nazareth.

If He wasn’t the Son of God. 

If the manger was empty apart from hay or was filled with just another baby born into a humble existence in the likeness of Adam.

So during this season of Advent, we will walk through selections from the Gospel of John and remember what it means to us today that LOVE showed up, the definition of the first Advent of our Lord and Savior.

This devotional series begins December 1^st and continues daily until Christmas.

If you haven’t signed up to receive the daily postings from SeminaryGal, you may sign up either on  Facebook SeminaryGal or use the space provided on the Home Page side bar.  If you already have signed up and are receiving these writings by email, I thank you for the encouragement you are to me!  I look forward to journeying together during Advent as we see “Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up In-Person.”