With the 3rd Advent focusing on Love, we will learn more about the birth of Jesus Christ and what that means for our spiritual life and journey. Love bears all things inspires the idea that we cannot ever be wrong for being who and What we truly are. Join us this Sunday to learn more about the Strength we bring to our own spiritual unfoldment.

And as always, there is great music and fellowship to enjoy at Unity Fort Worth.

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Sermon Notes

3rd Advent

Theme

Love

Scripture

“We shall love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.” —Matthew 22:37

Main Scripture

The Birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1–7 NRSVUE)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.[a]

Supporting Scriptures

“We shall love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.” —Matthew 22:37

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. —1 Corinthians 13:4–7

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. —1 Corinthians 13:8–10

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” —1 Corinthians 13:11

“For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know nly in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” —1 Corinthians 13:12

“And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” —1 Corinthians 13:13

Metaphysical Interpretations

MBD (Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, Charles Fillmore)
RW (Revealing Word, Charles Fillmore)

Nazareth (MBD)—The meaning of Nazareth is branch, offshoot, sprout, verdant, shining, watched, guarded…when we begin to awaken to the truth that we are sons of God…we are receptive to the inspiration of Spirit.

Galilee (MBD)—Energy of life; life activity; soul energy; power, force, energy, acting in conjunction with substance.

Judea (MBD)—A reference to the interpretation of Scriptural names shows Judæa (now commonly spelled Judea) to mean "the praise of Jehovah." This then is a key to the mental attitude in which the Christ consciousness will be opened to us--while we are praising the Lord.

city of David (Jerusalem; RW)—"Habitation of peace." The spiritual center in consciousness. In man it is the abiding consciousness of spiritual peace.

Bethlehem (MBD)—house of bread, symbolizing the abiding place of substance.

Mary (MBD)—The feminine, the soul, the affectional and emotional phase of man's being, both when seemingly bound and limited by sensate thought, and in its freed, exalted state…Mary, the mother of Jesus, represents the soul that magnifies the Lord "daily in the temple" and through its devotions prepares itself for the higher life. She signifies the divine motherhood of love. She can also be said to be intuition.

Joseph (MBD)—Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus, represent wisdom and love, which have been ideas in mind but are now to bring forth a manifestation in substance (Luke 2:4, 5)…Joseph was merely betrothed to Mary…This means that we do not in the first stages of the birth of Christ in us understand the process, and sometimes are moved to put it away from us. The soul is heavily charged with divine life, and so full that it cannot express itself intelligently, because no union has yet taken place between it and the understanding (Joseph).

Jesus (MBD)—The I in man, the self, the directive power, raised to divine understanding and power--the I AM identity…Jesus represents God's idea of man in expression; Christ is that idea in the absolute.

Christ (MBD)—Christ is the divine-idea man. Jesus is the name that represents an individual expression of the Christ idea. Jesus Christ is the form of the name that is commonly applied to the man of Galilee who demonstrated perfection. Christ Jesus is the idea that is being expressed by men as the result of their faith in and understanding of Truth.

Christ, the birth of (MBD)—The birth of Christ in man is the bringing to consciousness of the spiritual idea of man the Christ of God--through the quickening power of the word of Truth.

bands of cloth (MBD)—The helplessness of man's thoughts about the new life can also be said to be represented by the "swaddling clothes."

manger (MBD)— They represent confinement to the limitations of the physical nature of this first emanation of divine life, "because there was no room for them in the inn” (outer consciousness).

manger (Rev. Edward Rabel)—The manger in which the birth takes place, is the human consciousness; the ordinary, natural man, human consciousness, that is where it is really born. That is not where it comes from, that is where it goes to; where does it come from? What is its origin in the personal or individual consciousness? The Christ. But Christ is not it; Christ is what makes it possible. We have Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus.