With November upon us, it won’t be long before Advent commences. The season of Advent, not commonly observed in modern, evangelical churches, begins the 4^th Sunday before Christmas and runs until Christmas. This season of the church calendar encourages Christians to prepare for the celebration of Christmas. Advent is a call to treat Christmas as more than a reason to exchange gifts and visit loved ones. This Advent season, I encourage you to prepare for Christmas via a Great Commandment Advent.

The Great Commandment, Jesus tells us, is to love God with everything. The second is like it, to love my neighbor as myself. These two great commandments summarize the law and the prophets. A Great Commandment Advent uses these commandments as the basis for Christmas preparation. During Advent, time is set aside to grow in love for God and show His love to others.

First consider the vertical aspect of Advent: loving God. The weeks leading up to Christmas are often quite busy for Americans. There is extra shopping to accomplish, extra food to prepare, extra parties to attend, and traveling to visit relatives (or preparing for their impending arrival). For too many these extra duties mean Christ is relegated to a footnote in our preparation. Using Advent to grow in love for God requires setting aside additional time with God during advent.

This additional time might be invested in extended times of prayer, bible reading, personal worship, or family worship. For some it could simply be regularly attending worship or Sunday school, too. The simple question one needs to answer is, “How can I spend additional time with God during these weeks?” Extra investment in the Lord this Advent will reap dividends at Christmas.

Next, consider the horizontal aspect of Advent: loving others. Christmas presents a unique opportunity for Christians. Christmas is one time of year when most people expect some references to Jesus. Moreover, the celebration of Christmas gives us the chance to help people understand what they are celebrating. But those kinds of conversations are best done through relationships. A neighbor I know well will likely be more attentive than a stranger I’ve never met. So, during Advent I can invest in loving my neighbors to build those relationships.

By now you might be thinking, “But I don’t have the time for any of this, can’t it wait until after Christmas?” Certainly it could, there is nothing which makes Advent more or less holy than any other time of year. However, that can quickly become an excuse to never take more time to love God and others. After Christmas there will be other duties, other priorities, other time sinks that absorb my days. It is highly likely that, if I will not take time during Advent, then I will not take time at all.

And it will require taking time. We only have 24 hours each day. In order to invest more time in God and others, I must take that time from something else. I must choose now what I will say, “No,” to, so that I will have time to say, “yes,” to God and others.