Category: Advent Series

Will you be traveling over the holidays? Don’t forget to check in here each day while we continue with these Advent thoughts about preparing our hearts for Christmas.

Many years ago, before I was married, I worked in Mexico with Wycliffe Bible Translators. My father, a godly pastor, never really understood the work that I engaged in there until he traveled to visit me south of the border.

I wanted Dad to experience what indigenous life was like. I took Dad out to visit a friend in a small Aztec village. The people of the village, discovering that a pastor from the US was visiting, asked Dad to speak to their congregation. There, in a simple room with wood slats for walls, beneath the glow of gasoline lanterns and seated on a hard bench, my friend translated into Aztec my father’s words of truth. Dad talked of a river of life that flows from God to man. Sin is like a barrier that impedes those waters. Pride, anger, marital discord, and dishonesty, to mention only a few, all interrupt God’s Spirit from being able to flow through us.

John the Baptist knew about those barriers. In Matthew 3:3, he quoted Isaiah, saying “Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, ‘Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord! Prepare a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!’”

Remove any obstacles on the road. As you approach Christmas this year, prepare your heart by asking God’s Spirit to identify any barriers within your soul.

Welcome back for another Advent devotional about preparing our hearts for Christmas!

Can you imagine buying all the boxes and wrapping paper and bows for Christmas but forgetting to buy the gifts to go with them? Or preparing for a huge family gathering and forgetting to send out invitations to guests? Something appears to be out of order.

Recently, I took a flight to Texas to see my son and his family. The cabin crew did the usual announcements about emergency exits and donning life jackets. They reminded us, that in the case of an emergency, oxygen masks would drop down. “In this event, parents should first put on their own masks and only then assist their children with their masks.” Priorities.

In Luke 14:25-33, Jesus challenged the crowds following him to count the full expense of commitment. “Don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first getting estimates and then checking to see if there is enough money to pay the bills?…Or what king would ever dream of going to war without first sitting down with his counselors and discussing whether his army of ten thousand is strong enough to defeat the twenty thousand soldiers who are marching against him?”

Those words are still applicable today. We need to prepare for the high cost of following Christ. Thousands of believers around the world are paying for their faith with their lives.

Get your priorities right…first be prepared to pay the cost and then march forward!

Surprise! Another day of Advent has come and another devotional thought awaits you here!

Thirty years ago, my family made plans to come to Pennsylvania for Christmas. My father and mother would drive up from Virginia, my brother David and his family planned to fly in from California, and my brother Robert would come too. The only person missing would be my oldest brother Richard who was serving as a missionary in Greece.

Gene and I prepared a surprise for Mom and Dad. As our Christmas gift to them, we bought tickets for Richard to fly in from Greece so he could complete the family gathering.

At the time, that trip felt like an unnecessary extravagance, but only later did we see in hindsight what God knew all along. That Christmas would be the last time our nuclear family was ever in one place. A year later, my mother Joan died unexpectedly. David was in hospital in California and unable to attend the funeral. How thankful I was that God gifted us with that last family reunion at Christmas!

Proverbs 16:1 says, “We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer.” We can plan, we can prepare, but ultimately, God is in control. His plans will always be bigger than our own.

What are your plans for the holidays? Be prepared for surprises, and not just the ones you plan!

How are your preparations for Christmas coming? Are gifts bought and wrapped? Today we are looking at one more way to prepare our hearts for the holiday.

Early in our marriage, my husband and I had many friends who enjoyed decoupage, applying multiple layers of glue to paper or fabric on wood. That first Christmas, Gene and I received a large number of these wall plaques. The problem was that we had a very small apartment with even less space for decorations. We finally designated a special spot on one wall where we displayed the “Decoupage of the Month” plaque.

These days, I live in an apartment again. I do not have lots of things sitting around that I need to polish or dust. Most everything serves a purpose.

In 2 Chron. 29:18,19, King Hezekiah rededicated the Temple and its utensils for the service of the Lord. The Levites carefully followed all God’s instructions and cleansed the Temple, tossing out anything that did not belong there. Everything that remained had a purpose.

Then the Levites went to King Hezekiah and gave him this report: “We have cleansed the entire Temple of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table of the Bread of the Presence with all its utensils…They are now in front of the altar of the Lord, purified and ready for use (prepared).”

When God purifies us, his goal is not just to have us sit around on display but for us to be used. Freshly washed diapers smell sweet and clean, but they are not meant to sit in a drawer or display on a wall. They are ready to be used. In a similar way, Advent is a time for preparation so that we may be ready for God to use us for his purposes. Take time today and ask God to cleanse you but also to show you where he can use you.

Welcome to the fourth of these Advent devotionals on “Preparation.” Perhaps you want to invite a friend to join you on this journey.

About 35 years ago, when my children were still very young, I wanted a way to help Tim, Prisca and John grasp the true meaning of Christmas. The world around them distracted them from a humble stable in Bethlehem. Stores were decorated with trees and toys, people lined up to get photos with Santa and his elves, grocery aisles blared Christmas music about reindeer.

How could I prepare my sons and daughter for the advent of Jesus’ birth? How could I ready them to obey the Lord?

That is when I first began this yearly tradition of preparing 24 Advent devotionals that built a wave of anticipation, a wave that crested on December 25th. In 1 Chron. 29:1-20, the people of God brought gifts to build God’s Temple. They presented their gifts freely and wholeheartedly. It was almost like Christmas!

King David’s heart also filled with joy, but in verse 18, he asked God for one more thing: “O Lord, the God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, prepare your people to always want to obey you. See to it that their love for you never changes.”

God has been answering that prayer for thousands of years. God sent his Son to earth that he might show us how to obey the Father. But we have work to do at our end also. As Christmas approaches this year, read the entire chapter from 1 Chronicles. Will your heart be ready to obey him?

Glad to see you have returned for a third day as we tackle the Advent theme of “Preparation.”

Our family always remembers the year that my young daughter Prisca opened a Christmas package to discover she had received a package of light bulbs. Her face said it all: Disappointment combined with confusion. Little did she know that the light bulbs were a vital part of my preparation for her real gift, an Easy Bake oven, a gift yet to be unwrapped.

How sad it would be to receive an Easy Bake oven without a light bulb to make it work. Or imagine finding a remote-control drone under the tree but no batteries to operate it! How does a child thank Mom and Dad for such a gift when the youngster can’t use it?

In the same way, God did more than simply create the world. He made preparations for that world and then he also made plans for supplying it with all it needed to operate. The “batteries” and “bulbs” included rain and sunshine to keep things growing.

As Psalm 147:8 says, “He covers the heavens with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, and makes the grass grow in mountain pastures.”

Take a walk outside today. Pretend you are Adam or Eve. How does our world today look different from the one they first saw in Eden? God’s ongoing cycle of nature tells us the Lord is still actively at work preparing for our care and nurture!

As surely as the sun comes up each morning, our God is faithful and will provide all you need. A third lesson for us on heart preparation? Praise, for his faithful on-going care.

Welcome back for the second of our Advent devotionals on this year’s theme of “Preparation.”

When I was a child, one of my older brothers loved to make model airplane kits. Every Christmas there was a new kit under the tree. The pieces came already formed. All he had to do was follow the instructions and glue the pieces together. But then he painted the sides and fine details. He added decals to make each plane look distinct and realistic.

In Genesis chapter 1, we see how much preparation God put into creating a world for us. He had no ready-made kit. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” He separated light from darkness, he divided the waters from the dry land. He designed a garden full of plants and trees. He added the sun, moon and stars. He filled the ocean with fish, the skies with birds, and the land with animals. And by the time he made man? All was ready for Adam and Eve to enjoy.

God prepared every detail and was pleased with his work. Where my brother assembled his plastic plane kits for his personal pleasure to display in his bedroom, our God created this world as a gift for his people. The Lord did not need sun and moon, or trees and animals in order to have glory. He already had glory. He prepared these things for his pleasure and for ours.

Take some time now to thank him for the world he prepared for you thousands upon thousands of years ago. You see, the second step in our soul-preparation should be to fill our hearts with gratitude.

With Christmas less than a month away, it is time to begin another series of Advent devotionals designed to prepare our hearts for the arrival of the infant in Bethlehem.

Advent marks a season of self-examination and soul preparation, and thus the theme for this year is “Preparation.” Over the next weeks, we will look at how God carefully assembled a world for us, how Jesus is active right now preparing a place for us in heaven, and along the way, what our role is in getting ready for Christ’s return.

How would you feel if you walked into the throne room of Buckingham Palace? How would you react? What major decisions have been made in that place by former monarchs? How have those decisions impacted human history?

Psalm 103:19 says “The Lord has prepared the heavens as his throne; from there he rules over everything.”

Have you ever considered that God could have made his throne on Earth where we could see him seated there each day? However, seeing is not the same as believing. Sometimes, observing the same object day after day causes our eyes to glaze over. We take it for granted. We assume it will always be there. We can ignore its significance.

Walk outside today. Look up at the sky as it stretches from one side of the earth to the other. Thick clouds only add to the pageantry. You are seeing God’s throne. It is immense. It is beyond our reach. God prepared that throne for himself and surrounded it with heavenly beings. Every person on earth stands below and must feel small by comparison.

If God spent time preparing this world for us, then we must also ready ourselves to enter his world. The first step in our own “preparation” for Christmas begins with humility, recognizing the greatness of our God.

Return tomorrow to learn more about our newest theme!