Transition for Transformation Week 4: Love Brought Us Back From The Brink by: Pastor Lula A. Baker

 

LOVE BROUGHT US BACK FROM THE BRINK

TRANSITION 4 TRANSFORMATION

Transition— movement passage or change from one position, state, stage, subject, or concept

Transformation —Change in form, appearance, character, and nature

We would all concur that 2021 has been another transitional year! There have been gains, losses, misses, and lessons! We've been up, down, right, wrong, crooked, straight, bent, broken, delighted, surprised, elevated, promoted, sharpened, setback, setup, empowered, encouraged, and equipped!

As the waning hours draw to a close and we use tools of inflection as well as reflection, if we're completely honest, we will truly admit and acknowledge that LOVE (Agape) rescued us even if we did not recognize we needed it!

Love as God displays it through the entrance of His one and ONLY beloved begotten Son full of grace and truth! Real love indeed is an action, a behavior. It's identifiable! It's visible, palpable, not just an emotional moment!

When the Gospel writer conveys John 3: 16 "that God so loved the world that He gave," a whole world was revealed to believers! A love that would sacrifice, surrender, suffer to show us salvation should be celebrated, honored, adored, and highly exalted!

We are just a few days before the set-aside time that we extol God for the greatest gift the world has ever been granted. That humble little babe born on a stable place in a feeding trough swaddled in bands of cloth! As we draw this year with all of that we've been, how can we as individuals, families, local assemblies representing the whole body of Christ express our sincere gratitude and deep appreciation for this life-changing miracle that permeated our dark devastated, drab, disturbed world? 1 John 4: 11 "Beloved since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another!"

What if we started, as of this reading, to really begin to display the love that this passage describes in visible, tangible ways!

Someone is saying or thinking (your thoughts just became audible), "I do exhibit that kind of love." But is it only towards those in your circle? Those that would otherwise not be included! That's who Jesus came to include to minister to! What about the lost, least, last, and left out?

John Francis Wade wrote the beautiful Christmas lyrics O Come All Ye Faithful in 1743! The chorus is what we're the most familiar O Come Let Us Adore Him.

That's the challenge! That's the mandate! That's the command!

The Transition 4 Transformation starts with loving as God did, like Emmanuel (God with us) does!