God Wants Us to Know the Greatest Virtue: Love-Advent 18 (2019)

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:12-13)

The whole reason Jesus came was to reveal the Father’s love for us.  First in the Incarnation, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, entering into the human reality of mortality, seeing human sin up close, knowing the death sentence sin brings, feeling every temptation just as we do, and yet all the while, He was doing something more.  He showed us what love looks like.  It looks like Jesus on Good Friday, hanging obediently on a Cross, giving up His spirit and breathing His last.  From a cradle (or manger) to the Cross to a grave (that couldn’t hold Him), Jesus displayed the greatest virtue: Love.

Think About It:

• Do you know what that kind of love means?  What it looks like? 
• When Scripture says we know “in part” why can we not know fully this side of heaven?

God Wants Us to Know the Greatest Virtue: Love

Dear Lord,  give me grace to aspire to increasing knowledge of You, that I might know love, the greatest virtue.  May Your Holy Spirit teach me how to love others sacrificially and selflessly.  Teach me, Lord, to be a better friend, spouse, parent, and child.  Teach me how to love.  Amen.

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Join me beginning December 1, 2019 by signing up on the sidebar of my Home Page to receive these daily devotionals. Let’s enjoy exploring what might be on God’s Christmas list.

Acknowledging inquiries about an entire season’s devotionals for your study group’s planning purposes, Seminary Gal’s prior seasons’ Advent devotionals can be accessed via the archives to the right and are as follows:  

• Last year’s Advent Devotional Series (2018) Storyteller began December 2, 2018 and entered into the Christmas story through its telling.
• The 2017 series Still Christmas, began December 3, 2017 and was the Advent complement to the Lenten series, Be Still and Know that I AM God.
• The 2016 season devotionals were called “Timeless: The Message of Christmas for All Ages” and explored how the message of Christmas is timeless truth, for all ages of people, and for all ages at all times.  Timeless hope, encouragement, grace, peace, and love as we looked into the Word, saw the face of our Lord Jesus, and experienced restoration in His presence.  His goodness and His Gospel are truly Timeless. The 2016 devotionals began November 27, 2016.
• The 2015 season devotionals were titled Incarnation and involved digging deep–and yes, I mean deep– in this important mystery of Christian theology.  They began November 29, 2015.
• Carol Me, Christmas! remains one of my most popular offerings and tells the Christmas story through our most beloved Christmas hymns and carols.  You can access all of the numbered devotionals from 2014 via the archives.  They began November 30, 2014.
• The 2013 series was Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up in Person and examined the Prologue to the Gospel of John.  It began December 1, 2013.
• The 2012 series focused on Expecting the Unexpected…the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan outlined in Luke’s account of the Christmas story.  It began December 1, 2012.