Love has come to reveal God and redeem us. God sent Jesus at just the right time out of His great love for the world. Responding to Jesus by believing in Him will save us. Loving each other is how God’s full expression of love becomes visible. --- Advent is a time to remember and reflect, but it's also a time of looking forward with hope and anticipation. The word advent itself means “arrival” or “an appearing or coming into place.” Christians celebrate Christ’s “first advent” or coming to earth at Christmastime. Each Christmas, we remember the significance of the arrival of baby Jesus to earth, and we look forward with great anticipation to his coming return, or His “second advent”. But the greatest hope of all is that Jesus is fully present in this world, making Himself known to us, each and every day. Advent is a season of hope in the promises of God. Let’s take time together this Christmas to focus on our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and increase our sense of expectancy to see his promises fulfilled in our everyday lives.
John 3:16-18 NLT
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.
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Truth #1: God Loved
Truth #2: God Gave
Truth #3: God Saves
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John 3:14-15 NIV
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
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Truth #1: We are perishable
Truth #2: We are responsible
Truth #3: We are redeemable
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1 John 4:9-12 NLT
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
