The Third Sunday of Advent

They’ll twinkle as little eyelids flutter into dreamland.

They’ll remind our sweet little girls that they are beloved.

Tomorrow night, we will hang lights in the girls’ room tomorrow. Wrapping them up and around the rafters; trailing the chord down the wall to the outlet.  As Christmas carols play, and we bring warmth and holiday into a girlie-girl bedroom, I want our daughters to take this week’s light personally.

For this week, we celebrate Jesus Coming to Renew Love…

So that we may love Him.

So that we may know He loves us.

So that we may love one another.

If they gain anything from life, this one message is sufficient.

After the lights are glowing, jammies are on, and teeth are brushed, we’ll sit on the edge of their beds and read from 1 John. We’ll read about how God’s love in us stirs our hearts to love Him so deeply that we are able to love Him back! We’re able to love one another, when once we were selfish and lonesome. We’ll talk about what this love means between sisters. How does one sister feel loved? How does the other sister give love? We’ll talk about how we cannot love each other perfectly.. that we must receive God’s forgiveness on behalf of ourselves and one another. We’ll talk about how our hearts are safe and content in the love of our Father, His perfect love, that provides for our love, too.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” 1 John 4: 7 – 21