Love is

Galatians 2:20-21 "I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Galatians 2 is the passage I have been chewing on for a long time now.  I am always confronted by these last two verses.  These verses reflect so concisely the reality of faith that I need to remember daily.  I am not saying that I only reflect on these two verses, but rather that the reflection on these two verses have been helpful in catapulting me deeper in to the faith.  These two verses help me see the present reality of sanctification in the lives of others and my own.

When I remember that to live is Christ, as a believer, I am blessed with a deeper reality presently.  Anxiety washes away, because I realize that we are all totally in God's hand.  To live is Christ and therefore we are invited to let God be God and glorify Him.  This reality is possible because Christ first died for us and we join him in that death and the resurrection that followed.  Christ gave himself as a sacrifice out of love for each and every one of us including you and me (I find it too easy to exclude myself from a pronoun sometimes).  This is grace that Holy God is not only mindful of all our sins but chooses to love us actively.  God's love is so active that he came as a child to live among us for a time.  God suffered humanity.  His love is so great that even when he could have left us wallowing in ignorance and ritual he showed us how to love him and one another.  He did this and knew we would kill him violently and with mocking lips.  We hung him on a tree each one of us drove a nail into his body.  The ones who knew him best still did not understand how Emmanuel could die like this.  'God with us' bore a crown of thorns and hung between two criminals.  He died as the worst of us, according to our laws, die.  Love wins in this reality though.  You see Christ died that we might do likewise with him.  We can die too and even more so we can rise again in Christ.  If we die with Christ we also rise with him.  Love does not die or end at the cross.  It has victory to claim.

They shut love in a tomb and put it under guard.  The stone was rolled back and love came forth in its fullness.  No more death.  Love wins.  Christ gave himself for me and now lives in me.  His outpouring sanctifies me hourly.  He is life in me.  I do not achieve life through ritual or religion.  No, he is life given through grace.  I cannot set this grace aside, because to do so would be to die to my futile attempts at righteousness.  In Christ we are brought into life.  That life is then led through the Spirit.

We are not alone even now.  The Spirit is present and active.  The Spirit speaks and intercedes on our behalf constantly.  Grace abounds in this world because love wins.  The written law cannot save me or you.  So please join me in living by faith.

We will not always have the answer for the question that arises in moment.

We will not always have a smile on our face.

We will not always be the favored ones.

We will always be in God's hand.

We will always be learning what living by faith is.

We will always be in the presence of Almighty God.

We will always have life.

Love wins.

The Father, Son, and Spirit have called you by name.

Christ died that we might have righteousness and lives that we might not only have righteousness but have it abundantly in him and glorify God in it.

Blessings more than we could imagine.

May your advent be full.