Advent: The Invitation of Advent: Love

Today we look at the Advent theme of love and see how Jesus opens our hearts and hands.

 

Notes/Quotes:

John 3:16-17 -

Storge - Familial love - parents/kids
Philea - Friendship love
Eros - Romantic love
Agape - Covenantal Love

True love is to be ruthlessly and unconditionally committed to another’s flourishing.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” - CS Lewis

“Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all—a vision encapsulated by the shorthand “the kingdom of God. Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind; he is after nothing less than your wants, your loves, your longings.” - James K.A. Smith

1 John 3:1

Ephesians 4:14-16