Advent Reading Friday December 3rd       Psalm 146:5 5 Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, We face unprecedented influences in our day to day lives. We are inundated by advertisers trying to influence our buying decisions, images previous generations would label as pornography on billboards throughout the city, societal influences that label what God calls sin to not only be acceptable but the preferred behavior. Our children are being taught debaucheries in schools and Bible knowledge is becoming less and less of a priority in evangelical churches. We have demonic influences vying for our attention and we need help. God’s expectations are high! Jesus told us to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect! Make no mistake, God expects His people to be holy, and in our satanic culture, we have enemies. But there is no reason to lose hope! Not only is God going to redeem what is broken, but He is fighting for us. When the Egyptians were enclosing on the Israelites to slaughter them, Moses told them, “The LORD will fight for you, you need only be still” (Exodus 14:14). He has given us everything we need for faith and godliness, so let’s embrace the gift He gave us! Let us put our hope not in what we can do, but rather in what God has already done and, as experience the happiness that comes from the hope we have in God – He is our great help in times of need.

Advent Reading Thursday December 2nd       Psalm 147:11 11 The Lord values those who fear him, those who put their hope in his faithful love. There is a moniker that was made popular by Campus Crusade Ministries that can be summed up in the phrase, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” It was part of the “4 Spiritual Laws” tract that was probably one of the most popular evangelistic tools of the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s. Pastors and scholars have since been in debate whether or not that moniker is true. Can we really walk up to any random person and be able to say, “God loves you” and represent what God’s word teaches about God? No. Scripture teaches that those outside the faith are at enmity with God and are by nature his enemies. The same was true of us before we were saved. But God, in His great love, mercy and grace made the elect co-heirs with Christ. By our own merit, we are as valuable as filthy garments, but God made a way for our value to be found in Christ. We are valuable to God because of who Christ is and in the merit of Christ’s perfect obedience. As we look forward to Christmas, remember what it is that Christ represents for us: to be seen as valuable to God through Christ – you are seen as perfect because Christ is perfect. We have a great hope to be in the presence of God because of the gift He gave. Motivated by His loving kindness and to bring glory to the Son, He sent His Son to wash away the sins of the world. Let’s praise Him together! Hallelujah!

Advent Devotional Wednesday December 1st       Psalm 71:14-15 14 But I will hope continually and will praise you more and more. 15 My mouth will tell about your righteousness and your salvation all day long, though I cannot sum them up. I love my wife but describing how I love her is hard to do. The way I love her is ever-evolving and honestly, very different than the day we got married. It has matured as it has weathered the storms of arguments, sleepless nights with crying babies, frayed nerves from unsuccessful job-hunts and even through nearly going home to be with Jesus in my fight with Covid this year. The way I love my wife has grown deeper and deeper as the years have gone on, and that is the same thing the psalmist is describing here. The way our earthly relationships evolve over time is similar to how our relationship with the Lord evolves over time… or at least it should. The longer we are in relationship with the Lord, the more and more we should be changed by it. We can look back and remember what He has done in our lives and in the lives of those we love. Our hope in Him isn’t the same as it was when we first believed. Hope is informed by His Word and by watching and waiting for Him to do what He does best: bringing glory to His name. The psalmist cries out that his hope in God is continual, it is on-going and that he is in it for life. It brings excitement that leads to praising and glorifying God. This advent season, we have many opportunities to gather and glorify God together, but you don’t need to wait for these corporate worship services to glorify God! Tell your neighbors how good God is, how holy He is, how righteous He is and how your hope in Him hasn’t been disappointed. If you do feel like God has let you down through a prayer that went seemingly unanswered or you are in the throes of a dark season in your life, know that you are not alone. God wants you to bring that to Him and He has given you a community to lean on, to remind you that God is faithful. Put your hope in Him, seek Him in His word and wait. His love is better than life.

Advent Devotional Tuesday November 30th       Psalm 31:24 24 Be strong, and let your heart be courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord. This psalm is a plea for protection. The psalmist describes in detail what he was facing, struggles that were both from his enemies but also struggles from within, knowing the weight of his sin and how it has offended God. R.C. Sproul was once asked why the punishment assessed against Adam and Eve was so severe and he famously replied, “What’s wrong with you people?!” He would go on to point out how when our focus is on man, sin doesn’t seem that bad, but it reveals that our focus is in the wrong place. When our focus is on who God is, His holiness, His sovereignty, His majesty, and see our sin rightly as an offense to the holiness of God, we have a better idea of the gravity of our dilemma. But even in acknowledging his sin before God, the psalmist goes to God for protection. He knew that the only hope he had was found in the grace and loving-kindness of God. He ends this psalm by encouraging his readers to be strong, to be courageous – all because of who God is. Is your hope in the loving-kindness and grace of God or do you fall in to the habit of thinking that God is out to get you because of your sin? He wants us to come to Him to be cleansed, that’s why He made a way for us to be cleansed through the blood of Jesus. Be strong and let your heart be courageous, let your hope be in God and rejoice in what Christ has done for you.