Skip to main content

Day 8, The Second Week of Advent: Connecting the Dots

One of my favorite things as a child was to get those pages that we're filled with nothing more than Dots...and the goal was to connect the dots and then discover what the picture is all about.

As we celebrate Christ today in our worship, I hope you can "SEE" Jesus in your time of worship with others.  I hope you can connect the dots.

Each Sunday in Advent we sing an old hymn to begin our worship service - O Come, O Come Emmanuel  The hymn has its roots in the 8th century.  I think its the closest we modern Christians get to singing like the ancient Monastics did in their chants.  Do you remember it?

1 O come, O come, Immanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

Refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
shall come to you, O Israel.
Here the hymn begins...with a prayer, a longing for God to come - Emmanuel means "God with us".  From the prophet Isaiah, 
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. 

The longing for God to come is where our Advent intersects with our own lives.  The prophet 2700 years ago is saying something for us today. 
Connect the dots...
Galatians 4:4 - 5
4  But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,  5  to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 

Immanuel, Jesus Christ, born of the woman (his humanity), born under the law (his perfect obedience), redeems those who also were under God's law (because we could never perfectly obey it) so that we might be adopted in God's family, be the children of God (eternally).

Connect the dots...
1 John 3:1-3
1  See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
2  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
3  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Connect the dots, give him all glory, honor and praise today as you worship Him.

Peace 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday, Day 25: Christmas Eve - God Loves Us (So We Can Relax)

For Kids: There’s a lot of things we have to do each day. Get up from our sleep, Get dressed, Eat Breakfast, Get ready for School, Listen to the teacher, play with friends, eat our lunch, and after it’s all done, go back home. There’s time to play, Then we eat our supper… And eventually we have to get ready for bed and go to sleep! And then we do it all over again the next day. Sometimes there’s a vacation - like right now - and we get more time to play, to have fun and not have to do work at school. Our parents are good at helping us know what time it is and what we need to do next – even when we don’t want to move on to the next thing.  God is also good at helping us know what time it is, and what is next.  He doesn’t shout at us, or yell, or even scream…he does it peacefully, quietly.  He wants us to understand that he does it, most of all, for us. Christmas can be quite busy and there’s lots of things going on at once…but l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joy to the World - Help is On the Way

It’s the first day of Advent– while you prepare for Worship this morning at church take a minute to ask God to direct you through this season that you might be prepared to “receive your King”. In the first week of Advent we celebrate the PROMISE of His Coming. His promise is based on our need. We were made in his image, but there is emptiness in our soul that is the result of the Fallen nature of sin. But why did Jesus come? What in his coming announces God's heart? His desire for us to know and experience? 10 BUT THE ANGEL SAID TO THEM, "DO NOT BE AFRAID; FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY WHICH WILL BE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE; 11 FOR TODAY IN THE CITY OF DAVID THERE HAS BEEN BORN FOR YOU A SAVIOR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD. GREAT JOY! Did you know that God is Joyful? 1 CHRONICLES 16:23-27 (NASB) 23 SING TO THE LORD, ALL THE EARTH; PROCLAIM GOOD TIDINGS OF HIS SALVATION FROM DAY TO DAY. 24 TELL OF HIS GLORY AMONG THE NATIONS, HIS WONDERFUL DEEDS AMONG ALL THE PEOPLES....
46 comments
Read more

The Gospel of Matthew - Coming: An Exposition and Devotional on the Life of Jesus

Preface  I just finished writing a daily devotional of the book of Matthew with an emphasis on expositing the text and bringing some daily devotional thoughts to the text.  It will be a 40-day journey reading the book of Matthew and the things I wrote within it. Why do it?  Well, first of all, I have loved reading the Scripture for over 50 years now.  I taught the Scriptures on multiple levels from Sunday messages in a Church, to Bible Studies, to Young Adults' discipleship formation, to lectures in a college setting.  I love the Scriptures because it is the Word of God delivered to us from God through human authors, and as Paul reminded Timothy, “it is profitable”. Matthew was a disciple of Jesus, also called Levi, he was not like most of the other disciples. Many of the disciples were middle-class, some commoners, and several were fishermen by trade (which made them middle-class commoners).  We don't know what all of them did, but we do know what Matthew ...
Post a Comment
Read more