Gift of Love

Tonight I preach for the first time in our new setting. It is always interesting and different preaching in a new setting. While preaching at MLC I was preaching to friends and here I am preaching to people I don't really know. This is part of the adventure and learning that God has in this place.

I will be sharing tonight that the birth of Christ is really about God's gift of love. Christ is the clearest expression of God's love for us. We have made so much of religion and Christianity has so many expressions which sometimes agree and so often disagree. Yet at the heart of it all Christ is a gift of love for all people. This gift is so beautiful, wonderful and gracious.

Christ as the gift of love enables us to experience God's love in a real and profound way. We are given the gift of love so that we can love and live as a friend of mine said "more deeply in Love". We can live in love because Love has become incarnate in Christ and therefore our humanity is captured and clothed in this great love.

The gift of love enables us to have joy, peace, forgiveness, healing and grace. All of these flow as an expression of the gift of Christ. All that we ever really want can be found in Christ. The malls can't stock the things that we deeply want and need. These come as gifts from God through our Beloved Christ.

I feel that we should be like the shepherds who when hearing this good news left their fields and went to see the newborn Christ. Friends let us open our hearts and minds to a deeper relationship with Christ who is the gift of love.