Decorate Your Heart

 

1 John 1:9

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

 

I love it when we decorate our home for the advent. A tree with bright red balls and strings of popcorn, wreaths, lights.  It is so exciting.  I love it!  First we clean our living room well, and then we make it sparkle with our decorations.  I love it!

 

However, I am finding Advent a time to also decorate my heart.  First I must clean it up.  Sin smudges are everywhere.  I need to confess and wash it clean with the blood of Jesus! Then I need to fill the heart with love.  Garlands of peace, joy, and kindness add great sparkle.  This is a season to share Jesus.  We need to share Him from clean, well decorated hearts.  The instructions are all written in God’s word, so let’s open up the Book and decorate the heart!

Here Comes Immanuel

 

Isaiah 7:14

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Here we have a reference in the Old Testament that tells about the birth of Jesus.  It tells about His mother: a virgin. It tells His sex: male.   It tells His name: Immanuel.  And it told these details 700 years before Jesus was born.  Isaiah had no machines to tell this.  It came directly from God.  It was a message of hope in a troubled time.  When the kingdoms of the world were in transition, and people were troubled, God sent out a message of hope to that world.  That message is for us, too!  This Immanuel did come.  God kept His promise, and He did it!  Now we have God with us, day by day! 

 

 God is still fulfilling His promise .  We still have Immanuel – God with us.  It is our hope and help day by day.  The holidays can be hard.  They are full of stress, and difficult situations.  For some of us they are too full as we take advantage of each opportunity to share the Gospel.  At the end of the day we find ourselves exhausted!  But we have Immanuel – God with us all the time, every step of the way.  So today celebrate God who keeps His promises and is with us!

Abraham: Example of Advent Faith

 

Abraham

Genesis 22:18 (ESV)

¹⁸ and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

Abraham was old and childless, but God promised Abraham not only descendants as numerous as the stars, but through his descendants all the nations of the world would be blessed.  How could that be?  It required that Abraham believe that nothing is impossible for God.  It required Abraham be obedient to God and trust the fulfillment of a promise that would not be seen in his lifetime.  He had to know God and His perfect character and trust Him.  He had to keep his focus on that God.  He had to believe in faith.  The Bible tells us that faith was counted unto Abraham as righteousness.  For Abraham it was salvation by faith.  For us it is the same.  We come to salvation through faith.  We can look back at a point in history when Jesus lived.  Abraham had to believe the Savior would come.  We believe He did come.  Both are acts of faith.  So this year at Advent we rejoice because the blessing of all nations did come.  Think of Abraham trusting it would come.  Then remember NOTHING is impossible with God.

A Child is Born to Us

 

Isaiah 9:2-7 (ESV)

² The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shone.
³ You have multiplied the nation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

⁴ For the yoke of his burden,
    and the staff for his shoulder,
    the rod of his oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵ For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
    and every garment rolled in blood
    will be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace
    there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

 

For many years our family have been reading this passage as we enter into Advent.  It is a good place to start.  It establishes that the world is in darkness.  The darkness comes from our own sin.  We each contribute.  But God does not leave us in hopeless darkness. Oh, no!  He shines His light on us, even in the most deeply dark places.  Into places where light has never come.  Into hearts over run by sin and despair God shines a bright light, bringing hope.  Not only does it bring hope, but it brings joy!  Why is there hope and joy?  Well, sin is defeated.  How does this happen?  Jesus appears on the scene and everything changes.  A child is born and the world is forever changed.  Nothing can be the same, for this Child takes it all on His shoulders, and becomes our all in all.  He becomes our Emmanuel! Hallelujah!

People of Advent: Adam and Eve

 

From time to time in this advent series I will look at the people involved with the advent.  Today it is Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve Genesis 3:22-24

²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

 

It seems surprising to include Adam and Eve in the advent.  The Advent happened long after Adam and Eve lived.  They were long dead.  How do they enter in?  Well, they were not physically present at the Advent, but their presence underlies The Advent event.  If Adam and Eve had not chosen to sin, Jesus would not have had to come. From the minute of their sin we were in need of a Savior.  They knew perfection and they knew the loss of perfection.  I think they understood the consequence of choosing sin over God’s plan more than any human being.  For them it was tragedy.  For us it is tragedy, too, but we have not experienced perfection so we cannot conceive of the magnitude of loss.  We were born this way. 

 

Someday we will live in a perfect world, better than even what Adam and Eve knew.  We will do that because Jesus came.  The Advent!  When we live in that perfection we will  be unable to sin.  Everything will be right, and Satan will be beaten, vanquished. 

 

When you think of Advent think about the reason for it, and the hope The Advent brings.  Then sing out those Christmas songs with all your heart!

 

Day 3

Genesis 3:1-24 The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You^[a] shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,^[b] she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

 

Well, here it is!  The debut of sin.  It crept in with subtle words that made Adam and Eve feel they deserved to sin.  It would be so much fun!  They could be God, and they would have the power.  That was what they wanted.  It would make them feel great.  They thought it would improve on perfection.

 

Well, surprise!  They could not improve on God’s plan.  Sin resulted in separation from God and all the perfection and beauty they lived with.  It was replaced with pain and toil and broken relationship.  It was forever lost.  God provided a way to restore relationships with Him, but it was never like in the garden.  That was lost.

As we enter advent let us ponder our relationship with God.  What do we want in that relationship?  We need forgiveness for the myriad of times we give in to the sin of discontent and try to fashion something better.  Just give that up!  You cannot make anything better than God.  So sit down for ten minutes and practice being content with God!

Man in Sync with God

 

Genesis 1:26-30 (ESV)

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man^[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

 

God made man in His own image.  He gave man intellect and responsibility.  We were mandated with caring for creation which in turn would provide us with food.  We were told to multiply and populate the earth.  God made us, gave us work and food and it was good.  The whole world was perfect in all respects.  Man was in sync with God.  That is how it should be.  That was God’s image of life on this world. In fact if life had stayed like this Jesus would not have needed to come.  But it all went crazy, and sin bounded into the world with destruction spewing everywhere.  It did not have to happen that way.  Man was not content with the world God gave him.  He wanted more, but ended up with less. How do you want more than God has given?  Are you willing to surrender to God’s perfect plan?  Why not try it?