Illuminate Advent Sample

Illuminate Love Day 2

We’ve all been or will be loved, and have or will experience the sting of love failing. That sting, whatever form it takes, leaves a lasting scar sometimes spanning a lifetime, reminding us of the realities of both love and loss of love. 

Why does love break? Because outside of Christ, any love on this planet is only as consistent as the character of the heart from which it comes. And none on earth has a heart with the capability to love flawlessly. That is why we must, time and time again, redirect our vision to the author of Love Himself, who is forever flawless, incapable of loving poorly.

Psalm 136 is a lengthy psalm that was sung among God’s people to redirect their vision up to God and His steadfast love for them. These 26 verses repetitiously respond to God’s character and activity for His people with a faith-filled declaration that rings as true for you and me today as it did for a man or woman sitting in the shadow of the Temple several thousand years ago: His steadfast love endures forever.

God’s love has no beginning or end. Its fullness has been and will exist eternally. Yet its fullness had an earthly advent in the humble arrival of Jesus’ miraculous birth. The words of a well known Christmas carol sing, ‘Down in a lowly manger the humble Christ was born.’ God the Son humbly laid down the royal splendor of heaven to lay down first in a bed of rough hay, growing then in favor with God and man, living sinless in obedience to the will of the Father, and in finality laying himself down on the rough splinters of the cross, on which He was crucified for the forgiveness of our sins. What love! A love that never faltered or failed, swayed or stopped over his 33 years on earth.

As we read Psalm 136 today, the beauty of Christmas finds good verbiage specifically in verses 23-25.

Psalm 136:23–25

It is he who remembered us in our low estate,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

and rescued us from our foes,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

he who gives food to all flesh,

for his steadfast love endures forever. (ESV)

Without Jesus, we are all of low estate. We are all impoverished of soul, guilty and separated from God, and as Ephesians 2:1 clearly states, dead in our trespasses and sins. There is no lower estate than that of being separated from God. And God’s love is that He remembered us. He saw us. He still sees us in our stables of desperation. And so He sent Jesus to meet us there. He rescues us from our foes. He came to destroy the works of our foe, Satan, and to rescue us from ourselves and our sin. And through the giving up of his own flesh, He provided Himself as the bread of God, giving life to the world, for all who come to Him in faith, promising that we should never hunger or thirst again.

John 6:31–35

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (ESV)

The advent of love in Jesus Christ was and is an eternally powerful reality. It is a love that is secure, saving, and supplying. But it would be foolish to end talking about His steadfast love without a response to it.

Psalm 136 both begins and ends with the only fitting response to God’s love: thanksgiving.

Psalm 136:26

Give thanks to the God of heaven,

for his steadfast love endures forever. (ESV)

Jesus, we give thanks to you for loving us faithfully. From birth to burial and in the power of your resurrection you never stopped loving. May we remain grateful this Christmas for that love’s arrival.

Take-Aways

1. Take time this week to give thanks to God for how His love has specifically been steadfast in your life. Remember who He is and what He has done for you.

2. Don’t let His love remain bottled up in you. Find ways to let His love flow through you into others. Read 1 Corinthians 13 for specific ways.