Dec 4 Weekly Devotional: Advent Hope
Root deeper in the word and apply it to your life daily!
During the season of Advent, we’ll read Scripture that focuses on the themes for the week. This week’s readings will focus on the light and hope that come through Jesus Christ.
Reading 1: Isaiah 9:1-7
“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside is not a bad picture of Advent.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Reading 2: Matthew 4:12-17
“Could justice really come to the earth? Could husbands quit beating up their wives, and could wives quit blaming themselves? Could Palestinians and Israelis finally join hands? Could some of us who struggle with addictions or with diseases that trap us be liberated by God and start to walk tall in the kingdom of God? When God descends to us at the end, could we perhaps awaken every day to “stabs of joy” in the mornings “too full of beauty” for us?
“If we believe in the kingdom of God we will pray, and we will hope for those without much hope left. We will drive through the fog of doubt that descends on even the keenest believers….
“The hardest task for people who believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ is in “living the sort of life that makes people say, ‘Ah, so that’s how people are going to live when righteousness takes over our world.”
Cornelius Platinga
Reading 3: Luke 2:8-15
“Christian hope is not wishful thinking. Christian hope is an expectant leap forward. This radically counterintuitive nature of Christian hope is shaped by a resilience and fortitude that’s woefully missing from pop-culture renderings of hope.”
Jay Kim
Reading 4: John 3:14-21
“While other worldview leads us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.”
Tim Keller
Reading 5: John 1:1-18
“Christmas is not about the living God coming to tell us everything's all right. John's gospel isn't about Jesus speaking the truth and everyone saying: "Of course! Why didn't we realize it before?" It is about God shining his clear, bright torch into the darkness of our world, our lives, our hearts, our imaginations—and the darkness not comprehending it. It's about God, God as a little child, speaking words of truth, and nobody knowing what he's talking about.”
NT Wright
For more encouragement, learn about Anna, who waited for Jesus with hope.