The True Gift of Christmas is Love
Christmas is filled with romantic songs, engagement proposals, and messages about love. While there’s nothing wrong with celebrating romantic love during the season, the constant focus on earthly romance can sometimes overshadow the greatest love story ever told. This Christmas, let’s step back from our culture’s version of love and discover the real love story that has been written for each of us.
What Makes Christmas About Love?
From the very beginning of creation, love has been God’s story. When God spoke us into existence, He wove His love into the very fabric of our world. He didn’t just create Adam and Eve and walk away – He walked with them daily in the garden, desiring a loving relationship with His creation.
Even after humanity betrayed Him through sin, God continued to love, provide for, and protect His people. He showed His love to Noah’s family by warning them of judgment and protecting them through the flood. He gave the Ten Commandments not as burdensome rules, but as expressions of His love – showing us how to live in relationship with Him and atone for our sins.
How Did God Demonstrate His Love at Christmas?
God’s love turned the world upside down when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live among us. Emmanuel means “God with us” – the Creator of the universe chose to be born in a lowly stable, grow up as a human, teach, die on a cross, and rise again from the grave.
The love of God entered our lives tangibly at that first Christmas to disrupt and overturn the power of death and sin. Christ died to overcome the evil that separates God’s creation from God, allowing those who know Him to experience the friendship and communion He desires to have with us.
Christmas is the story of God’s love in action – a story that tells you how much God loves you and how much He’s willing to sacrifice for you. God’s desire is that you be a main character in this love story, not just a spectator.
How Do I Accept God’s Gift of Love?
The first step with any gift is accepting it. John 3:16 tells us: “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’s love was demonstrated in Christ coming to earth, opening a pathway for us to experience God’s love and forgiveness that wouldn’t have been available otherwise. But you have to accept this gift.
Many people struggle to accept God’s love because they feel:
- Unlovable or unworthy
- Hurt by people they trusted
- Guilty about their past mistakes
- Doubtful that God could love them
Why God’s Love is Bigger Than Your Past
Whatever you’re carrying this morning, God’s love is strong enough to heal it. He knows your story – every detail, even things you’ve forgotten. His love burns so powerfully that it will burn through your doubt, pain, struggle, fear, and sin.
God’s desire is to express His love in a way that heals your brokenness and restores you to the original version of creation He made you to be. No matter what your story looks like, His answer is always the same: He offers forgiveness and restoration.
To accept this gift, simply believe that Jesus is God, believe that He died as payment for your sin, believe that He loves you, turn away from sin, ask for forgiveness, and follow Him.
How Can I Experience God’s Love Daily?
It’s one thing to accept God’s love mechanically, but another thing entirely to experience it in a way that surrounds, encompasses, fills, and pours out of you.
Life constantly pulls us in every direction with busy calendars, pressures, and worries. When we watch the news or think about tomorrow, worry can settle in so quickly that it becomes hard to feel loved at all.
Nothing Can Separate You From God’s Love
Romans 8:38-39 gives us a powerful picture: “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow… nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This describes a love that never falters, fades, weakens, or loses its hold on those it has redeemed. Nothing in this world or beyond has the strength to pull you out of God’s hand or diminish His love for you.
God’s Love Transforms Lives
God’s unfailing love transforms and changes lives completely. When someone truly experiences God’s forgiveness and love, they become unrecognizable from who they were before. This transformation happens because God is bigger than our failures – there’s nothing you’ve done that cannot be paid for by the blood of Christ.
His mercies begin fresh each morning, and His love is there for you to grab hold of every day.
How Should I Share God’s Love With Others?
When you’re truly in love, it shows – you can’t hide it. The same is true with God’s love. It’s meant to be shared, and the wonderful thing is that sharing it never leaves us with less.
God pours His love into our lives so it can move through us into the lives of other people. When you understand the depth of God’s love, it should create a desire to share it with others.
Practical Ways to Share God’s Love
We share God’s love when we:
- Forgive someone who hurts us
- Speak gently instead of harshly
- Give time to someone who feels forgotten
- Pray for friends going through struggles
- Serve without expecting anything in return
- Listen, encourage, and choose compassion over frustration
- Tell others about the gospel and God’s free gift of salvation
Most importantly, we share God’s love when we tell others about the good news – that God loved them so much that if they place their faith in Him, He will save them, give them eternal life, forgive every sin, and allow them to start fresh.
Life Application
This Christmas season, consider what it would look like for you to accept, experience, and share God’s love in a deeper way. Perhaps it means slowing down to be fully present with family, reconnecting with a friend who has drifted away, mending a broken relationship, serving a neighbor in need, or offering forgiveness where there’s been tension.
Take a moment to settle on one specific way you can share God’s love this week. Keep your eyes open for the opportunities God places in front of you when you’re ready to see them.
Questions for Reflection:
- Have I truly accepted God’s gift of love through Jesus Christ?
- What barriers might be preventing me from fully experiencing God’s love in my daily life?
- How can I make room in my heart for Jesus this week?
- What is one practical way I can share God’s love with someone in my community this week?
The true gift of Christmas is love – not the sentimental love of holiday songs, but the transforming, healing, eternal love of God demonstrated through Jesus Christ. This love is available to you right now, waiting to be accepted, experienced, and shared with a world that desperately needs it.