Category Archives: Advent Devotional

November 29, 2021 · 10:03 pm

An Introduction to Advent

Advent comes from the Latin meaning “a coming” or “arrival.” The season begins on the Sunday nearest to November 30^th a Advent Prayer Partners - Deadline to Signup! - The Church of Saint Clarence nd ends on Christmas Eve. Advent begins our new church year as Christ comes to us again with that peace and joy needed to take us through another year.

During the season of Advent, the church celebrates two comings of Christ. First, we remember his incarnation, the coming of the Messiah, the world’s Savior. Second, we look forward to the second and final coming as reigning Lord and Judge. We thank him for His first Advent, prepare for his Second Advent, and celebrate His Presence through the Holy Spirit. It is a unique time when the past, the present, and the future realities of God are combined.

Advent gives voice to the joy and hope that the Christ Child brought to the earth and the expectation of the total restoration of God’s Kingdom. The Church looks forward to the completion of our salvation and the end of the world’s suffering when Christ comes again. The season forces spirituality into an increasingly secular Christmas and enriches our relationship to God, to each other, and those who have come before us.

The earliest recorded observances of Advent are from the fourth century. Monks set aside approximately six weeks before Christ’s Mass as a time of penitence and devotion and fasting. Advent became a time when new Christians prepared for baptism. For almost 2000 years, the church has set aside a four week period to recover Christmas as a holy time of expectation and preparation.

Today in the midst of so much despair Advent offers HOPE – the hope of the church, the hope of the restoration of creation to completeness upon Christ’s return, the hope of the salvation Christ brings. In the midst of so much war and death, Advent offers PEACE – the peace beyond our understanding, the peace that is more than the absence of conflict, the peace of Christ. In the midst of so much prejudice and hate, Advent offers LOVE – the perfect love of God, a way to love one another, the yearning to love His church. In the midst of so much sadness and loneliness, Advent offers JOY – the joy of salvation, the joy of life, the joy of heaven.

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December 1, 2020 · 7:00 am

A Day of Restoration

Tuesday Week 1 December 1

On that day, says the Lord,
   I will assemble the lame
and gather those who have been driven away,
   and those whom I have afflicted.
The lame I will make the remnant,
   and those who were cast off, a strong nation;
and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
   now and for evermore.

And you, O tower of the flock,
   hill of daughter Zion,
to you it shall come,
   the former dominion shall come,
   the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem

~~~Micah 4:6-8

Week Quote 2.jpg

Question- Are you looking for restoration in your life?

Prayer

Lord, Restore me and make me again be all that you envisioned me to be.

Amen

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December 6, 2017 · 9:27 am

Worth the Wait

Wednesday First Week of Advent

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40: 28-31

God seems to bless those who wait. Waiting is a timeless discipline with eternal rewards. The scripture has many stories of those who waited and learned.

Noah waited for years as he built a boat on dry land and learned the lesson of deliverance. Jonah waited three days in the belly of the fish and learned the lesson of obedience. The prophets waited for centuries to see the Messiah and learned the lesson of faith. Joseph waited in prison and learned the lesson of forgiveness. Zacharias waited to speak and learned the lesson of humility. Anna and Simeon waited a lifetime to see the Savior and learned the lesson of perseverance.

Waiting during the season of Advent can serve as a discipline to teach us many spiritual truths. While waiting we can develop patience and true obedience. We can glimpse the hugeness of God’s love and grace and learn to recognize holiness when we encounter it. Waiting nurtures our compassion and opens our eyes to see others in need. It opens our hearts to service and fosters a freedom to give and encourage others. As we pause and wait for God, we have time to assess our priorities, discover happiness where we are and develop an appreciation for what we have.

Advent is a time to deal with our fears, our anger, our disappointments, and learn to both give and receive forgiveness. It is a time to internalize the cleansing joy of repentance and to know the peace of taking last place. While we wait, we can use the unknown time to realize that living with mystery builds faith, and suffering and sacrifice reveal God to us. While waiting we acquire a dependence on God, we gain hope, and we become sure that while we wait we are never alone.

During Advent, the Church waits to celebrate the first Advent of God into the world and waits for completeness and perfection at the Second Advent. In the waiting, we find our peace.

Reflection – What have you learned from God during those waiting times of your life?
Monica Boudreaux

Prayer

Lord, teach me the value and virtue of waiting in this impatient world. The prophets of old knew that the things that they proclaimed were not yet evident. As we proclaim your coming may with do it with confidence and determination.

Amen

Whose Kingdom? (benclapton.id.au)
The Reformation Rolls On: (brothersjuddblog.com)

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December 5, 2017 · 7:41 am

Thanking God for Jesus

Tuesday, first week of Advent

OPENING PRAYER

Lord Jesus, you show us the loving face. Help us to love you in return.

SCRIPTURE

At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’

Luke 10:21,23-24

THINK ABOUT IT….

How wonderful it must have been to hear Jesus speak those words! God has revealed something special to them, not because they were great students are especially smart, but because God wanted them to know who Jesus was.

God still wants us to know who Jesus is. That’s why we have the Bible. That’s why we have the church. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we know that Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth and it’s not because we figured out something or because we have use our brain power instead, it’s because the father wants us to know who Jesus is so that we can be saved from sin and death.

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, we thank you for showing us your son. May we come to see him in his kingdom.

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December 4, 2017 · 10:25 am

Choosing the Path of Light

Monday First Week of Advent

OPENING PRAYER

Lord Jesus, may your Justice be revealed to all nations of the world.

SCRIPTURE

He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!

Isaiah 2:4-5

THINK ABOUT IT…

Decorations hung on houses and storefronts remind us that Christmas is coming. The Season’s echo through the malls and offices. Would have to close our eyes and ears to miss out on the season.

In the same way, we have to shut her eyes and ears to the Evening News not to know that we desperately need a savior. War and injustice, crime and violence were not part of God’s original plan, but sin brought a lot of bad things into the world. In his life, death and Resurrection, Jesus overcame sin and death and opened the way for us to share his life forever in heaven. Meanwhile, a struggle goes on between good and evil

This Advent, let us choose good. Let us follow the Lord every day and open our hearts to his love.

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord Jesus, may your kingdom come in our hearts and in our home.

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November 29, 2017 · 10:17 am

Advent–Coming

This Sunday is the first Sunday of the Advent season of the church. Advent is a special time for the church. The time is a mixture of anticipation and spiritual preparation for the coming of the Christ child. Such preparation involves repentance and joy.Those two are a rare combination. I share with you some words that my wife wrote a few year ago about Advent that emphasize the joy of the season.

Advent comes from the Latin meaning “a coming” or “arrival”. The season begins on the Sunday nearest to November 30 and ends on Christmas Eve. Advent begins our new church year as Christ comes to us again with the peace and joy needed to take us through another year.

Advent gives voice to the joy and hope that the Christ Child brought to the earth and the expectation of the total restoration of God’s Kingdom when He comes again. The church looks forward to the completion of our salvation and the end of the world’s suffering when Christ comes again. The season forces spirituality into an increasingly secular Christmas and enriches our relationship to God, to each other, and those who have come before us.

The earliest recorded observances of Advent are from the fourth century. Monks set aside approximately six weeks before Christ’s Mass as a time of penitence and devotion and fasting. Advent became a time when new Christians prepared for baptism. For more than a thousand years, the church has set aside a four week period to recover Christmas as a holy time of expectation and preparation.

Today in the midst of so much despair Advent offers HOPE – the hope of the church, the hope of the restoration of creation to completeness upon Christ’s return, the hope of the salvation Christ brings. In the midst of so much war and death, Advent offers PEACE – the peace beyond our understanding, the peace that is more than the absence of conflict, the peace of Christ. In the midst of so much prejudice and hate, Advent offers LOVE – the perfect love of God, a way to love one another, the yearning to love His church. In the midst of so much sadness and loneliness, Advent offers JOY – the joy of salvation, the joy of new life, the joy of heaven

Monica Boudreaux

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November 28, 2016 · 11:37 am

Advent–a coming

The earliest recorded observances of Advent are from the fourth century. Monks set aside approximately six weeks before Christ’s Mass as a time of penitence and devotion and fasting. Advent became a time when new Christians prepared for baptism. For more than a thousand years, the church has set aside a four week period to recover Christmas as a holy time of expectation and preparation.

“Build Your Own” Advent Calendar For Christmas 2016 (extravaganzi.com)
British families only attend church at Christmas, new figures suggest (telegraph.co.uk)

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December 10, 2013 · 10:04 am

Lost and Forgotten

¹²What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? ¹³And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. ¹⁴So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

Matthew 18:12-14

Jackie Turner posted a Craigslist ad asking to rent a Mom and Dad for Christmas. She was willing to pay $8 an hour just to have someone to talk to and be with for Christmas. Jackie is an honor student at William Jessup University who has come a long way from her broken and abusive background. The happy ending of this story is that Jackie got numerous responses and, with help of others, is planning a giant party for everyone who responded to her ad. What an encouraging turn of events!

The letters of the scripture passage are written in red because they are the words of Jesus. In a new movement called Red Letter Christianity, Christians seek to pay careful attention to the words of scripture that are spoken by Jesus and base their Christian walks on His direction. We would all do well to be become Red Letter Christians, especially at Christmas time.

Jesus instructs us to remember the lost sheep, but lost sheep like Jackie are often forgotten. Pray that God will give you wisdom to seek out the lost sheep of your neighborhood and community. Take the time to speak, to notice and to touch people around you with His love. It is truly the spirit of the season and the Christian life.

No one should be lost and forgotten at Christmas.

Is God Out There Looking For Me? (fromthedeaconsdesk.wordpress.com)

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December 6, 2013 · 7:40 am

Expectations

Rembrandt Simeon

Luke 2: 22-35

The season of Advent gives us many opportunities to develop spiritual disciplines that become part of our faith journey all year long. As we look forward to the celebration of the birth of Christ and anticipate his Second Coming we find that being faithful in times when the road ahead is unclear builds our dependence on God’s grace.

We can learn from Simeon about keeping faith. The Scripture tells us that he was a just and devout man in Jerusalem who had been promised by God that before he died he would see the Christ. As Mary and Joseph were taking the infant Jesus to the Temple to present Him to the Lord and make a sacrifice, the Spirit led Simeon to the Temple, also. When he saw the baby he immediately recognized Him as the Messiah, blessed Him, and made a prophecy about His mission. Then Simeon spoke to God and told him he was ready to depart this world in peace because his promise had been fulfilled, his longing had been satisfied, and his waiting had been rewarded. After a life time of expectation the reality of the Messiah had been confirmed to Simeon. His life’s goal of actually seeing the Christ had been accomplished.

Simon had spent those long years of faithful anticipation as an opportunity to know God more intimately and to practice his devotion more fully. Some lessons can only be learned in a time of spiritual darkness or uncertainty, so God gives us the blessing of this time to realize the rewards of faithfulness. He gives us a sure hope that binds us to the assurance of holy promises. He frees us from the limitations of the measure of earth’s time or human standards of success or achievement.

When Simeon did see the Lord, he knew Him at once because his years of waiting had given him a clear understanding of God’s revelation. When finally realized, our expectation brings the joy and affirmation that God’s promises are real. A transcendence of head knowledge engages the heart and soul – that eternal part of us that is made in the image of God. We find that God’s promises are a certainty not a possibility. We can be sure of the outcome, not doubtful of the end.

Advent is a time of spiritual expectation and longing, a time of confirmed promises, a time of unashamed hope of Christ’s Second Coming. Advent is the celebration of the realization of God’s promise to Simeon and to us – Christ has come and Christ will come again.

Reflection – What spiritual lessons would you like to learn this Advent?
Monica Boudreaux

Simeon’s Hope (fbcshawneeks.wordpress.com)

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December 3, 2013 · 5:35 am

The Family Tree

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord

Isaiah 11:1-3

We are all curious about our family heritage. Many of us take time to go to family reunions. Still others log on to research sites to find out if there is an exciting person in their background. Isaiah traces the roots of Jesus back to show His connection with King David. It is that strong heritage of freedom that Jesus proclaims for the people.

We share in that victory and heritage because we are children of the king.