Advent Week Four: Where LOVE takes hold

Love That Pursues and Redeems

Advent’s final candle draws us to love. Not the current definition of love as a sentimental affection or fleeting emotion, but the kind of love that costs, protects, fights, redeems, rules, and judges rightly. This is the love that does not merely feel; it acts. It moves toward us. It holds nothing back.

Biblical love is not passive. It is holy, jealous, victorious, redemptive, kingly, extravagant, and just. And it is this love that culminates the Advent at the cross, an empty tomb, and a throne at the center of a Kingdom.

This fourth week of Advent invites us to consider several of the names in the KNOWN Devotional, names that reveal love not as abstraction, but as action.

Jehovah Qanna — the Jealous God. Love begins here, though it may unsettle us at first. Unlike human jealousy, God’s jealousy is not a sign of insecurity or control; it is a holy protection. He does not compete for our affection because he needs us, but because he made us for himself. And only he will satisfy the longings of our hearts.

Every rival love promises fulfillment but delivers destruction. God’s jealousy burns because he knows what false gods cost us. His jealousy is a measure of our worth to him. We are deeply valued, fiercely pursued, and guarded for good. He refuses to share us with what will destroy us.

Jehovah Chereb — the Lord our Sword. Love does not merely protect us; it fights for us. This name reveals a God who is anything but passive. The Lord is not only our shield—he is our weapon. He flies into the storm, eyes fierce, thundering from the heavens, sword drawn on our behalf.

Some of our fiercest battles are unseen: fear, shame, exhaustion, doubt. Into that chaos, God rushes in. The battle is the Lord’s. His Word cuts through confusion. His presence consumes what seeks to destroy us, establishing us in peace. We are not left to defend ourselves; we are fought for.

Jehovah Go’el — our Kinsman-Redeemer. Love redeems at great cost. In Scripture, a redeemer was a close relative who stepped in to restore what was lost, such as freedom, inheritance, and dignity. God did not delegate this work to another; he came himself.

Jesus paid the full price with his own blood. He took our debt, our shame, our exile, and brought us home. We belong to him twice over: by creation and by redemption. Our worth is measured not by what we offer God in his Kingdom, but by what he was willing to pay for us to live forever in it.

Jehovah Hamelech — the King. Love reigns, but not like the kingdoms of this world. Our King rules from a cross before he returns with a crown. His Kingdom is upside down: the greatest serve, the meek inherit, the poor are blessed. Ruling looks more like cultivating a garden and restoring the world than a hierarchy of thrones over more thrones.

As citizens of this Kingdom, we are family—children of the King and co-heirs with Christ. To belong to Jehovah Hamelech is to submit and be secure, to bow and be lifted, to obey and be truly free. His reign is eternal. When everything else shakes, his Kingdom stands.

Jehovah Hashophet — the Lord, our Judge. Love is just. God sees everything—every motive, every injustice, every hidden wound. Nothing escapes his notice. This should stir both reverence and relief.

Because God judges rightly, the Kingdom of Darkness will not be victorious. And because Jesus stood in our place, judgment does not fall on us. The Judge is our Justifier. The gavel fell on Christ, and we walk free—accountable, yes, but covered, forgiven, and restored.

This is the love of Advent. Not fragile. Not fleeting. But fierce, faithful, and forever.

As we light the final candle, may its flame remind us: Love has come. Love has fought. Love has redeemed. Love now reigns.

And nothing will ever separate us from it.