Thank you for joining with us to celebrate Advent together! Whether you want to light the candle with us while watching the video or wish to use the video to inspire your own couple or family time, we are so grateful to be on this journey of remembrance with you!
Our prayer is that together we will experience more of God’s good gifts — especially more of Jesus. And please remember to check out the Advent calendar we made for you and the devotional below. We hope these tools lead to deeper conversations, more joy and more meaning as you celebrate Advent together!
Here are Shireen and Che Spencer (FamilyLife Regional Representatives for Ontario) as they share about love on this fourth Sunday and week of Advent:
Please join us in lighting the fourth candle of Advent (The Candle of Love) and doing the devotional below together:
Devotional
“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:16-19 (NLT)
Love marks this fourth week of Advent, and as Paul writes in Ephesians, the depth of God’s love is so great we can’t even fully understand it! He is the same God who met Mary and Joseph — right in the midst of their busyness, their confusion, their nervousness, their displacement and their pain and discomfort. The same is true for us; he meets us wherever we are, whatever we may be experiencing. He loves us so much that he gave us his son Jesus so that he could be among us, meet us in our earthly existence and demonstrate his sacrificial love for us.
So let’s remember that there is nothing that separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. As we continue to make Christ the centre of Christmas, may he strengthen our faith and draw us into a love that has no boundaries.
Whatever we may be facing in this season, may we remember that God is present with his love and will give us enough love to share with one another. Let the love of Jesus be the greatest gift we give each other!
Go Deeper Together
1. What has helped us understand God’s love in a greater way?
2. How have we experienced love from others?
3. What is something we can do together that shares the love of Jesus with others?
A Closing Prayer
Jesus, may our spirits be warmed as you remind us that we are safe in your love. Lord, may your songs of love be the best music to our ears as we listen to songs of the season. May we know beyond a shadow of doubt that nothing can separate us from your love. Love came down at Christmas and has never left us. Help us to extend your love to each other in a new way today. Amen.