“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
Our final Monday of Advent devotional focuses on the topic of love.
In light of the new challenges of the year, maybe love isn’t as free-flowing in your life as in years past. Maybe this year has left you underworked, having lost employment due to the constraints of the pandemic. Or maybe you’re overworked, in an industry with extra stress and longer hours due to logistics around COVID response. Maybe things have held fairly steady in the midst of the shifting sands of 2020.
“As we celebrate and long for Christ’s second coming, there is an imperative of love that is right at the center of these longings.”
As we celebrate and long for Christ’s second coming, there is an imperative of love that is right at the center of these longings.
In moments of tension, it can be all the more tempting to draw back from loving others. Yet, Peter calls Christians to a different ethic. In the face of the fire, Christians are to be a people who are known by their love.
This changes not just how you engage with your own friends and family, but also those you work with on a daily basis. With an ethic of love at the center, Christians can labor to God’s glory with genuine love for the work they do and the good it provides to their fellow image-bearers of God.
“Even in the midst of 2020s pain and the uncertainty of 2021, may everything you do be seasoned with love.”
We know this is possible only because Christians have been so loved by the God who sent his only Son. It was love that compelled Christ forward to live the life we could not, die the death we deserved, and rise again in glory. Because of the wonder of Christ’s love manifest for you and for me, we can love others.
Even in the midst of 2020s pain and the uncertainty of 2021, may everything you do be seasoned with love.
Father God, I long to have my life shaped by the brotherly love Peter speaks of. In word and deed, so often my heart is shaped by selfish desire rather than neighborly concern. Forgive me, Father, and turn my eyes to your great love for me. May the love of Christ, given for me, compel me to love and serve others in my work genuinely, that your name might be made great. In Jesus’ name, amen.
If you would like to directly support the work of CFWLA this giving season, you can do so at faithandworkla.com/donation.
Gage Arnold is the Communications Director for the Center for Faith & Work Los Angeles. He is currently an M.Div student at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO., and holds a B.S. in Journalism & Electronic Media from the University of Tennessee.