Love.

A call to worship.

Themes

Love • Self-giving • Trinity • Boundless grace • Communion • Creation • Redemption • Reconciliation • Healing • Transformation • Participation • The Spirit of Christ • Incarnation • Brokeness • Peace • The cross

God’s love is not provoked by anything in us or from us. It simply wells up from the inexhaustible depths of His own being and spills over toward us in boundless grace.

His love has always been relational and dynamic and active and an ongoing thrilling movement of self-giving communion that always reflects the rich relational life within His own triune being. So much so that it overflows and freely shares itself with us, such that we are invited to participate in His same eternal thrilling movement of love— invited to participate in His very life!

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Scripture reading

1 John 4:8, 9–10
John 17:24
John 14:31: 
1 John 4:9–10:
Romans 5:5
Romans 8:15–16

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This call to worship¹ is about love.

John, the disciple and apostle, sums it all up with these three words: 

God is love.


In his gospel, John records this prayer of Jesus. 

Father, I want 
those You have given Me 
to be with Me 
where I am, 
and to see My glory, 
the glory You have given Me 
because You loved Me 
before the creation 
of the world.


And from a teaching Jesus was giving about the promised Holy Spirit and about His relationship with His Father, John records these words from Jesus: 

I do as the Father has commanded Me, 
so that the world may know 
that I love the Father.


Later, John writes: 

This is how God 
showed His love among us: 
He sent his one and only Son 
into the world 
that we might live through Him. 
This is love: 
not that we loved God, 
but that He loved us 
and sent His Son 
as an atoning sacrifice 
for our sins.


The Apostle Paul, too, wrote of love. He wrote this: 

God’s love 
has been poured out 
into our hearts 
through the Holy Spirit, 
who has been given 
to us.

The Spirit you received 
brought about your adoption to sonship. 
And by Him 
we cry, 
“Abba, Father.”
(—an incredible term of affection and endearment.)

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Prayer

Unconditionally loving, 
graciously kind, 
mercifully saving 
Father in heaven, 
when we speak of love, 
it is often as though 
it were some abstract quality, 
some kind of detached universal ideal, 
merely a trait, 
one among many other traits 
that we might possess. 

But this is not the case with You. 

For You, 
love is a dynamic, 
relational, 
personal reality 
of Your very being. 
It is not one attribute among many. 
It is 
who 
You 
are 
at Your very essence. 
It is not a characteristic 
that You possess 
or a quality 
that can be added to 
or subtracted from 
who You are. 

Love defines 
Your existence. 
Love is 
Your identity. 
Love is not something 
that You happen to have. 
Love is not something 
that You perform.
Love is the essence 
of Your being. 
You are inherently 
self-giving. 
You are inherently 
relational. 
You exist as Trinity— 
a perfect relationship 
of mutual love. 

You did not need a creation to love. 
Your love is fully operative 
and infinitely complete 
within Your own divine triune life. 

You love us 
not because of who we are 
but because of who You are. 
Your love is not provoked 
by anything in us 
or from us. 
It simply wells up 
from the inexhaustible depths 
of Your own being 
and spills over toward us 
in boundless grace. 

Your love 
is the communion 
of Father, Son, and Spirit. 
And as that communion always was 
and always will be, 
so, too, Your love. 
And as that communion always was, 
so, too, has Your love 
always been relational 
and dynamic 
and active 
and an ongoing thrilling movement 
of self-giving communion 
that is reciprocal 
and mutual 
and eternal, 
and always reflecting 
the rich relational life 
that exists 
within Your own triune being. 

So much so 
that it overflows 
and freely creates us. 
It overflows 
and freely redeems us, 
freely reconciles us, 
freely heals us. 
It overflows 
and freely shares itself with us, 
such that we are invited 
to participate 
in Your same eternal thrilling movement of love— 
invited to participate 
in Your very life!

And we are given the Spirit of Christ 
so that we can, 
so that we can be drawn into 
Your Son’s relationship 
with You, Father, 
so that we can share in 
that communion of love 
that has eternally defined 
Your very being. 

You have not loved us from a distance. 
In the incarnation, 
starting with that filthy concretion 
of fluid 
and blood 
and the generative and genetic elements 
in Mary’s womb, 
Your eternal love, Father, 
entered into the depths of our humanity. 
Your Son incorporated Himself 
unreservedly into our existence. 
He penetrated 
our very nature. 
He entered into 
all our brokenness. 
He stepped into 
the darkest places of our souls. 
He took the state we were in 
and He made it His own. 
And He healed and transformed it from within. 

And the full scope 
of Your love 
was revealed. 

His life, death, and resurrection 
was the definitive act of self-giving. 

In its fullest expression, 
love is You 
reconciling the world 
to Yourself 
in Jesus Christ, 
not counting our sins against us 
but establishing peace 
through His cross.

In Jesus Christ, 
we encounter Your love 
as the healing 
of our alienation, 
as the forgiveness 
of our sins, 
as the restoration 
of communion, 
as the transformation 
of human relationship, 
as the renewal 
of our identities as Your children,
Amen

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1. This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, December 22, 2024