I believe that God is not lost. He is in the middle with us right now. If people will take a few moments and take this journey, hope will rise up in their hearts. I believe that.
The Word of God isn't for one particular season. It's for every season. But in its specific application, it's best read from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
If there's a perfect family out there, we're all happy for that family. But most families aren't perfect. Most families are living with some sort of challenge or some sort of difficulty.
We go from Malachi to Matthew in one page of our scriptures, but that one piece of paper that separates the Old Testament from the New Testament represents 400 years of history - 400 years where there wasn't a prophet, 400 years where God's voice wasn't heard. And that silence was broken with the cry of a baby on Christmas night.
God is faithful. God is faithful. 400 years might go by, but never count God out.
The two great moments in human history are the day that Christ was born and the day He was raised from the dead. These are represented by Christmas and Easter - the two biggest holidays for the church. People who don't even go to church do go on these days.
Even if we don't see it, God is always working underneath the surface, behind the scenes and orchestrating His plans and purposes.
God never seems to work at the speed that we want Him to.
Advent allows us to recover during this four-week journey. It begins four Sundays before Christmas all the way up to Christmas. It lets us breath in those moments of faithfulness and helps us recognize that God is working.
Advent is the season that can remind us God is working while we're waiting and we're really waiting with God.
There's something that's not right or not perfect or not the way we had hoped or dreamed that it was going to be. But God promises that He will use everything and every moment to ultimately take us to a new Heaven and a new Earth. For now, we're stuck in the middle.
Life is chaotic. It's messy. That's what Jesus was stepping into.
The word advent means "expectation." What advent can do for us is create a sense of hope.
Whether it's an attorney or a bond trader or a journalist, or a musician or pastor, you want to do your best. You don't want to seek acclaim. You don't want to seek awards. You want to seek to do your best at what God's given you.
The good thing about life is that you can research anywhere you are. I'm just constantly gathering little bits of information all the time. I'm always grabbing something out of the headlines, out of the news or reading a book about astronomy and just trying to figure out how to get my head around the facts but the bigger stress is trying to connect those facts to normal life situations and our relationship with God.
Each time I stop somewhere and look out, there are more people sitting there than there were the time I came before. I think that's just a reflection of the fact that what God's doing is really touching the hearts of people and making a difference in their lives. That's kind of the best things you can do to promote anything, I think, is to really just have God present.
God has plans and purposes for each of our lives. But the beauty is that He doesn't call us and leave us on our own. Jesus actually lives in us to pull off the amazing things that He has invited us into.
The world has been tragic since the day Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. From that moment murder, mayhem and war entered the scene and we are still suffering the consequences of a man-driven, self-serving, short-sighted environment.
As an overflow of my life - the wake I leave behind with my little dash on earth - I want others to fall in love with Jesus and know of His great hope and purpose for their lives.
As long as I can remember, the compelling force behind my calling is a desire to know Jesus more and to make Him known. I believe I was created for a relationship with Jesus, so growing in my relationship with Him and worshiping Him with all my heart and life is preeminent.
If you're waiting with God, waiting is okay. If you're always waiting on God, you'll be frustrated. God never seems to work at the speed that we want Him to.
Life isn't perfect and that's the kind of world where Jesus showed up. He wasn't born in a palace on a perfect day. He was born in the middle of the night during tax season to an unwed couple in a stable or a cave in a sheep field. That was God's way of showing us that nothing is perfect. Life is chaotic. It's messy. That's what Jesus was stepping into.
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