A Prayer about Loving from the Heart
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. (1 Pet. 1:22–23)
Dear Jesus, this is an awesome morning: good coffee, a fire in the fireplace, Christmas music playing, and a Scripture about loving well.
It’s only because you came into the world for me that I have the slightest clue about what loving well— having a “sincere love”— looks like. Jesus, it’s only because you lived for me and died for me that I have any experience of being loved deeply from the heart— your heart.
I need to sit still and marinate in this good news as my day begins: O joy beyond all delightings, O peace beyond all understandings, O hope beyond all imaginings— Jesus loves you deeply from his heart . . . and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t add to his love for you and you can’t diminish his love for you. You can simply enjoy it, be changed by it, and share it with others.
Jesus, I never could have “purified myself.” I never could have gained a relationship with God through purgings, penance, and promises of doing more and trying harder. What religion could never do for me, you’ve done for me. That’s what we celebrate at Advent: your coming to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. “Born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth —Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’”
It’s only because I was given the “second birth,” only because I was born again of the “imperishable seed” of grace, that I discovered my need of the gospel and was able to obey the truth of the gospel by believing it. You get all the credit, Jesus, from beginning to end.
So as I celebrate your incarnation this early morning, I surrender to its implications. Love in me and love through me, Jesus. There’s no other way I will love anybody well. Make my love for my brothers and sisters sincere and observable. Teach me how to love deeply from my heart, just as you love us. I pray in your holy and loving name.
Amen.