This weekend we celebrate the fourth of Advent, the Advent of Love. After hope, peace and joy, love is the ultimate gift, not only between you and me and all the others, but between our God and us. It leads directly to Christmas.

Love sounds like an easy topic. Everybody talks about love. Even within the product commercials you will hear that “you will love this toothpaste”, or “love the extra big screen”, and “don’t forget the extras that come with this or that. You will love them.” “If you buy the right gift, and our shop could help you there, your children and spouse will love you as well.” Sounds familiar? Love is a sales promotion.

On the other hand, unless you are right now in your honeymoon phase, you might know that love can be complicated and difficult. So many marriages fail, and it has nothing to do with being rich, famous or beautiful — if that were the case, Hollywood stars would be the happiest couples and never get a divorce.

Ever since the romantic era of the 18th century, we have been told love is just a feeling. But feelings are emotions, and the word “motion” is in there for a reason.

I am certain that love is more than a feeling. The falling in love, being touched inside when we see a cute baby or puppy or kitten, all that is feeling and it has to do with love. It does not take much to get us warm around the heart.

But love that actually lasts requires a little more than this initial feeling, it needs a decision to love, to stick with it, even when it gets difficult and to learn how to deal with unavoidable conflict. Because to love is much more than to like.

We like, as the word already indicates, those who are like us. It is easy to like your friends, those who share your interests, your persuasions, your taste or your social class.

Love though also extends to those who are difficult or outright impossible to like. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked us to even love our enemies. He told us not only to do good to those who are able to pay us back, but invite those who are outcasts or poor, those who are different from us.

So what is love then? The Greek language has two words for love: intimacy and sexual love are called eros, and unconditional or sacrificial love is called agape, plus two more words for friendship (philia) and family bond (storge).

In the New Testament it is all about the agape, the unconditional and sacrificial love. The Latin translation of this word, caritas, is the root for our modern word charity and the Roman Catholic Church has adopted the word for its worldwide helping organisation. This kind of love has its root actually in the love God has for us.

John 3:16 starts with the words “God so loved the world”. Yes, God loves the world. He loves you and me, and sometimes it even hurts to love, even for God. When God sees what is going on in and around us, it must hurt him at times. This kind of love is empathetic, it can feel with the loved one, feel the joy but also the pain. Christ loved us so much, that on the Cross, with his arms wide spread to include us all, it hurt so much that he even died for us.

You, too, may know about situations when love hurts. Especially when we have a loss, when someone we really and deeply loved as well as we could, is no longer around, or when love is not or no longer given back to us, it can hurt and even break our heart.

Then, even the “most wonderful time of the year”, Christmas, can be hard. Especially in our day, as Christmas is often reduced to gift exchange, “season’s greetings”, and Hallmark movies about “true love” found under the mistletoe.

Christmas is so much more than Santa Claus, hot chocolate and jingle bells. Christmas is actually the celebration of God’s Love for you and me and light coming into our darkness to overcome it.

That is why the early Church picked the three days after the darkest day of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ, as the true birthday is unknown. When the time was ready God sent his Son into this world, to help us understand this great love God has for us.

We can love only because God our creator is love and loves us. It is similar to children. Children need to experience unconditional and sacrificial love from their parents or caregivers in order to be able to really love themselves.

In psychology it is called “urvertrauen” (basic trust) that will only develop when all the basic needs of the child (physical, mental, spiritual, nutritional and safety) are met without doubt. That is actually what love is. Taking care that the needs of those around us are met.

That is why Paul says about love in 1 Corinthians 13 that without it, everything is worthless. What good is it to use the nicest words, almost like an angel, but have no love to let deeds follow my words?

Or what good is it to know everything, be well informed and maybe even able to predict what will happen, but lack love? What good is it to be religious, give your life for your faith, but don’t have love?

Even giving all your belongings to the poor, if you don’t do it because you feel love for those who you are helping, but for some other motive, such as to be praised for it by others, save on your taxes, or impress somebody, it is actually worthless.

And then the Apostle Paul continues (1 Corinthians, 13:4-8a, NIV): “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Wow, to live love that way, we have to make up our mind. A feeling clearly won’t do it. Maybe we could make it a 12 Days of Christmas challenge: every day between Christmas and Three Kings (January 6) we try one new attribute of love, and of course repeat the ones we had already before.

So let’s begin: on the first day of Christmas my true love came to me and: I was more patient. Not everybody is already where we are. Let’s give them more time, Let’s give ourselves more time, too. Be patient. Take a deep breath. Enjoy the time, especially on Christmas.

Day 2: let’s be a little kinder with each other. Let friendliness become your superpower, especially with those who serve us with their work or with their kindness, whether it is in a restaurant, at the cashier, with the trash collectors, and all the others who try to help us every day.

Day 3: next challenge, let’s not envy those who seem to have it so much easier than us. Not only do we not know what their life is like, but envy lets us forget all the good we enjoy. Instead, let’s practise more gratitude and contentedness.

Day 4: forget about all the boasting. I understand, it feels good to let others know how great we are, but if it’s true, they probably found out already. There is nothing wrong about self-esteem and being good at things. Others are as well.

Day 5: That gets us right into the next attribute of love — no need to be proud. Pride is often not attached to achievement, but to feeling better than others.

Day 6: let us try to think positive about others, and find something good to say about them. Love does not dishonour others.

Day 7: selfishness is not really part of love. Yes, we should love ourselves as well, and be happy with ourselves, but true love trusts that our needs will be met eventually anyway, so we don’t have to put ourselves first all the time.

Day 8: are you easily angered? Anger is actually a secondary emotion. It is the response to an initial emotion and has its place when we have to fight to survive. Survival is seldom at risk in our days. So let us not easily be angered.

Day 9: when we keep a mental record of all the hurt we experienced, “making a list and checking it twice”, we will only hurt ourselves again and again. Forgiveness is the key to so many traumas. Let go and let God.

Day 10: Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Some think if they jump on the bandwagon of the bully they may be safe. Love requires at times to stick to the truth and call out the lies. That requires some courage, but we already practised nine days of love. We can do that.

Day 11: love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I know that is actually four attributes, but by now we can handle a little extra challenge. Let us be protective and trusting at the same time, hoping everything will be OK and it will stay OK if we have the stamina to persevere.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love came to me and we realised that our love will “never fail”. Merry Christmas.

• Karsten Decker was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s