You’re Worth Loving
This year St. Peter’s UCC in Grant Park is providing the book A Love Worth Giving to You at Christmas by Max Lucado for our members to distribute to their families, friends, and neighbors as a small gift. Each book includes an invitation to worship with our church family on Christmas Eve.
Throughout Advent we are reminding everyone that they are worth loving! Lucado writes, “(Jesus) went from commanding angels to sleeping in straw. From holding stars to clutching Mary’s finger. The palm that held the universe took the nail of a soldier. Why? Because that’s what love does.”
Each day, during Advent, join us for a journey to see just how much God’s love for you is evidenced in the story of Christmas.
Righteous and Blameless
Yesterday we reflected on John the Baptist and his preparation and proclamation of the coming Christ.
How many of you know who his mother was?
We are introduced to John the Baptist’s mother in the first chapter of Luke. Her name was Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was the wife of Zechariah, who was a priest. She was also a cousin to Mary, who would give birth to Christ.
Elizabeth was advancing in age and was unable to have children. This grieved Zechariah and Elizabeth.
However, one day when Zechariah was in the temple making an offering to God, an angel appeared to him and proclaimed that he and Elizabeth would soon be parents.
The angel instructed Zechariah to name their child John and exclaimed that John would “be great before the Lord.”
What the gospel writer Luke says about Zechariah and Elizabeth is an amazing statement.
“And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord.” (Luke 1:6, ESV).
Whether or not Zechariah and Elizabeth’s faith resulted in their becoming parents, what is more important is that despite not having what they wanted they remained faithful. They remained righteous and blameless.
Many of us attempt to be “good” Christians and obey God’s commands. We go to church, give of our time and money, and do our religious obligations. However, as time progresses we find that things aren’t the way our human nature would really want.
Naturally, we start to waver and ask ourselves if investing our time and our obedience to God is really worth it. Some of us walk away from the faith, others experience a wilderness of spiritual growth for years, and others experience a growth of doubts.
However, God’s calling is to remain faithful.
Like Elizabeth and Zechariah, we are to remain righteous and blameless. We are to keep growing in our faith, keep seeking the Christ child, keep on keeping on.
When we remember that we are WORTH loving, we remember that it is WORTH our time being faithful.
Prayer: God, help us to strive to be more righteous. To seek Your face and Your ways. Forgive us when we don’t live up to Your holy ways and pull us back into Your fold. May it be said of us, when it is all said and done, that we were righteous before You and walked blamelessly in all Your commands. Amen.