The Love of Advent
The Love of Advent
The final week of Advent draws our attention to the theme of Love—not a fragile, sentimental love, but the fierce, costly, incarnational love of God that moved Him to step into the world He created. For you, this week is more than a beautiful reflection; it is a reminder of the very heartbeat of your calling.
Advent Love begins with God’s initiative: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Before you ever set foot in the nation where you serve, before you learned cultural cues or bore ministry burdens, God’s love was already pursuing you. His love grounded your calling, sustained your obedience, and continues to be the well from which you draw from each day.
As Christmas nears, we remember that Love put on flesh. The eternal Word became a child—fragile, dependent, vulnerable. This is the shape of divine love: it comes close, it enters pain, it chooses humility, and it meets people where they are. You know this well. You learned to love through presence, through listening, through adapting, through perseverance, and through a willingness to step into the complexity of human need. The Incarnation validates every quiet, faithful act of love you have offered this year.
But the final week of Advent also reminds us that God’s love is not only something we give—it is something we must continually receive. The reality of your calling can stretch your capacity to love to its outer limits. Fatigue, cultural stress, spiritual resistance, team challenges, and the ache of distance from loved ones can thin your emotional reserves. Advent whispers a needed truth: You are not meant to love on your own. The same Christ who entered the world enters your weakness, renewal, and rest.
As you move toward Christmas, let Advent Love do three things in you:
1. Let Love replenish you: Christ’s nearness is not merely theological—it is deeply personal. Sit with the truth that God delights in you. Let His affection quiet the inner pressures and restore your tenderness.
2. Let Love reshape your expectations: Some seeds you planted this year have not yet sprouted. Love frees you from measuring success by visible results. God is at work in unseen ways.
3. Let Love flow outward again: In the final days of Advent, ask Jesus to fill your heart with His compassion for those around you—the weary, the curious, the resistant, the hopeful.
This week, may the Love that came down in Christ fill your heart, steady your spirit, and overflow through your life—wherever in the world you serve.
-The MissioCare Collective Team