Sin is really sticky — far more persistent than those obnoxious tags stuck on things that we struggle to get off. But, Jesus’s mission in this world was to do what we can’t: remove that sin from us.
We easily draw safe boundaries around God’s grace, welcoming those who seem familiar while overlooking those who feel foreign or difficult. Yet the distant wise men of Matthew 2 and the rejoicing Gentiles of Acts 13 confront those boundaries: Jesus came to reach the world. Who might God be placing beyond our comfort, yet within the reach of his good news?
Once the Christmas packages are cleared away, the dark sections of life can become painfully visible again—and we may have no idea how to fix them. Revelation 22 meets that helplessness with a river of life, a tree for the healing of the nations, and a coming day when night will be no more.
A Twelve Day Journey Through God’s Hints of Christmas Before It Happened
As we give gifts small or large, simple or snazzy, this Christmas, this year’s devotional booklet invites us to reflect on the profound ways in which God gifts us to give the best sort of gifts to others. We will go on a twelve day journey through Galatians 5:22-26, exploring how the Holy Spirit transforms us to embody the essence of Christmas hope in the year ahead.
We all reach for something we can actually recognize and hold on to—some concrete person or presence we can truly know, not just a philosophy about. That hunger is exactly what John 1 puts its finger on: the Word who was with God in the beginning became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
Are we looking for the right thing and do we understand the right “time” for it? As we get everything synchronized for Christmas, the author of Hebrews encourages us to be synchronized with Christ.
When a winter forecast keeps bouncing around, most of us know better than to cancel everything over what might never arrive. Luke opens his Gospel with the opposite claim: this is no chance of grace next week, but the report of what has already been fulfilled among us—Jesus actually coming in history.
