Advent Devotion for December 24th, Christmas Eve

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: John 1:18

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

 

Devotional: Today we await the birth of a baby whose life among us made God known to us.

God among us is a picture that all of history longed for and was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

God is still God, but we now know God in Christ, because God has chosen to reveal God's Self to us and His ultimate plan for all creation. That revelation is not in law or proclamation or revolution or war. God reveals God's Self most fully and completely in the final episode of the life of the baby we welcome tomorrow.

God dies for us. God is resurrected for us. God ascends to the throne for us and will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

We now know of God's love and God's plan for God's creation. We know that finally God enfleshed will rule this world and will present His Kingdom to the Father.

Tomorrow, we welcome God among us, our Lord, our Savior, our King.

Receive your God with adoration and love and devotion, with faith and trust and obedience and live with God through Christ forever.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.

Advent Devotion for December 23rd, the 27th day of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: John 1:16-17

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.

Devotional: The fullness of God's Grace, God's gift to the world is given us in Jesus Christ. Issuing out of that gift are innumerable blessings, not the least of which is the Truth. Absolute complete Truth is found in Jesus Christ. We long for  Truth as parched land longs for water for we are inundated with falsehoods, exaggerations, full and half truths to the point where trust, faith and reliance are hard to rely upon. But absolute Truth, the Truth that would prove its reliability on the cross is available to all who believe in Jesus Christ. Though all may fabricate and deceive, the self-sacrificing love of God comes to us as a trustworthy gift in Jesus Christ.

God's Grace has been expressed to us through Moses in the law, but the gift of righteousness and the Truth of God come though God's gift of Jesus Christ.

He is the sure foundation, the solid rock of absolute, unqualified Truth. Each of us, all of us, can bet our lives on it.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.

Advent Devotion for December 22nd, the 26th day of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Devotional: We have experienced the glory of Almighty God in the Word Jesus Christ. That glory is the unconditional and self-sacrificing love of God, the One and Only for the world God created through Jesus Christ, sustains through Jesus Christ, and reconciles to God's Self in Jesus Christ.

The verb, “to see” in the Gospel of John means more than just physical sight. It means a profound appreciation of and appropriation of eternal meaning. It is somewhat like our expression when we finally thoroughly understand that which once was problematic; “Oh, I see!”

God has approached us, become absolutely intimate with us and rescued us from sin and death. “Oh, I see!” We have seen God's glory in Jesus Christ and that glory is shared with us, imparted to us and gifted to us for all eternity.

                                                  Glory be to the Father

and to the son

     and to the Holy Ghost

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.

Advent Devotion for December 21st, the 25th day of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: John 1:12-13

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become Children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will but born of God.

Devotional:  There were then and there are now persons who do receive Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, and believe him to be the Savior of the world.

These persons receive the most radical and wondrous gift. They are changed from human beings born through human agency to children born of God. If you will, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ - such an audacious concept that it exceeds human imagination and must come from God. We are born again, or born anew or born from above. We now in totality belong to God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Our minds cannot conceive of what it means now and for eternity to have God as Parent. What gifts of joy and peace and love are available to us now and for all eternity.
People often talk of being saved by faith in Jesus Christ from hell to heaven. But we are now dealing with a gift that includes but far surpasses such salvation. We are now Children of God forever. Nothing else determines or limits or can enhance our identity and personhood. We are born of God. This absolutely dictates how we live this day, the future and how we die, and how we live forever with our Father in our Brother, Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.

Advent Devotion for December 20, the 24th day of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.
 

Scripture Reading: John 1:10-11

He was in the world and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

 

Devotional:  The Word was not recognized even by those who were of His kin and religion. They did not recognize that He came from God, and was God, and so they did not accept Him.

Surely it must have been because His people did not expect the Word to be sent by God as an act of Grace, a gift. Surely the God who created the world; who chose the Jews as His special people; who gave the Jews the Law and the Prophets - surely this God would not send the Word into the human situation to be God and man at one and the same person. How extraordinary! How unpredictable! How shocking! Yet even those who believed in God at some level had to be impressed with the freedom of God not to conform God's Self to the expectations of humankind. Surely they realized by reading the Old Testament that God is not bound by human reason or logic or intellect or language and tradition. Yet the enfleshment of God was not appreciated or appropriated or accepted by the majority of Jesus' own people. Even in the light of miracles and healing and teaching about God, Jesus was asked to leave. At times the opposition came from His family and His hometown. Finally the leaders of His religious tradition demanded His execution. It looked as if the darkness had won and would continue to win. But God's Will is never thwarted by darkness. The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not and will not overcome it. God's Son is on the side of life, not sin and death, and neither sin nor death can determine the life of one who will receive the Word through faith.

What is true for Christ is true for His Gospel and His Church. Popularity and acceptance of God work in redeeming this world in and through Jesus Christ.

 

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.

Advent Devotion for December 19, the 23rd day of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: John 1:4-5

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Devotional:  In the Gospel of John, Light and Life are joined together as ways to describe the Word, Jesus Christ, and the life of any who have faith in him.

Real life, a life that is not determined by sin and death, is God's hope and expectation for all who live in Christ Jesus, and in whom Christ lives. Real life is a life filled with Light, not just as a private experience, but for all who encounter one in whom there is true life.

Darkness poetically describes sin and death, terror, bewilderment and confusion. One could argue convincingly that this is the state of the world in the absence of the One who is the Light of the World. Darkness is the antithesis of Light and that which wills the destruction of Light and Life. With Light comes the potential for real life, sight, understanding, discernment and absolute allegiance to God who sent the Light and Life into this world.

We now know where Light and Life reside. It is not a location, it is a person, Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

The darkness not only does not understand Light and Life, but is  determined to overcome it, and to conquer it. But the victory of the Light and Life in Jesus Christ is available to any who will accept Him as Lord and Savior, and invest all in Him.

This Advent, as we await the birth of the Light and Life of the World, could be the opportunity to see ourselves objectively and honestly.  Are there areas of darkness and death in your life? Do they appear to be powerful and unconquerable? Jesus Christ, the Life and Light of the World, stands ready to illumine and revitalize any aspect of your life. There is no hope in darkness. There is new eternal life in the Light of the World. Just ask, trust and obey.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.

Advent Devotion for December 18th, the 4th Sunday of Advent

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, into my life and into the life of Your world.

Scripture Reading: John 1:3

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

 

Devotional: We, ourselves, and everything we experience in life were created through the Word, Jesus Christ.

Said differently, it is the Word of God that is the agent God uses to create and recreate everything. The creative energy of Almighty God is expressed in the work of the Third Person of the Trinity.

So Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things, the owner of the world, and in all things. Everything and every being in the world testifies to the love of God and work of God through Jesus Christ. This love is communicated through creation itself, the Holy Scriptures, and the Church of Jesus Christ. Communion with God at some level has always been available to believers and non-believers through nature. The created order itself is a witness to the love of God for the world created in and through Jesus Christ.

For this reason and others, there is no such thing as spiritual divorced from or in opposition to the natural. God reveals God's nature through Jesus Christ in various ways through any medium in creation. Most often, this revelation comes through acts of prayer or worship, but can come through any avenue, for all is created by God in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we do not always recognize such experiences as witnesses to God's love, but few can be unmoved by the birth of a child, the view of the mountains, the elegance of a flower or the love of another person or a beloved pet.  These and all other experiences in our existence can be, and are, used by God to express God's love for this world in Jesus Christ.

It is all a matter of Grace, God's gift to us in and through Jesus Christ. Therefore, the only appropriate response or way to live is in abject gratitude for everything that we experience in this life and that to come.

Christ is everything!

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.