Dear Jesus, you came to love the world. And you did.
You loved the sweetly sleeping baby.
You loved the charming, verbal toddler.
You loved the quiet dreamer.
You loved the helpful parent-pleaser.
You loved the convicted truth-speaker.
You loved the loyal friend.
You loved the calm, gentle parent.
You loved the cheerful giver.
You loved the disciplined commandment-follower.
You loved the eager learner.
You loved the joyful praise-singer.
You loved the humble servant.
You loved the good and godly, the clean and beautiful, the obedient, and the lovable.
But you didn’t stop there.
You loved the screaming, colicky baby.
You loved the selfish toddler.
You loved the shy, awkward child.
You loved the disobeyer.
You loved the haughty mirror-gazer.
You loved the moody, rebellious teenager.
You loved the oversleeper and the glutton.
You loved the gossiper and the liar.
You loved the immoral commandment-breaker.
You loved the stubborn arguer.
You loved the promise breaker.
You loved the betrayer.
You loved the emotional mess.
You loved the angry, demanding parent.
You loved the too-busy and the self-absorbed.
You loved the stingy and the inhospitable.
You loved the proud boaster.
You loved the weak and the broken, the unclean and ungodly, the ugly, and the unlovable.
And you still do.
This year, may that love flow through me: love that doesn’t stop at easy, but reaches into the dark corners of difficult to bring light. May I live a life of love, because you did.
And because You first loved me.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12
