O come let us adore Him
Week 1 reading plan: Isaiah 40, Hebrews 6:13-19, 8:10
Advent = arrival.
Traditionally a season counting down the four Sunday's prior to Christmas honouring Christs arrival to earth.And as the year beckons to a close I wonder what you sister might be waiting for. Intimately. Personally. Where are you needing hope rekindled this season? Lets draw our hope - not from what is fleeting - but from true hope eternal. Found in one name, JESUS. Who chose to come down from Heaven and walk amongst us. And pay the ultimate-price to restore us in an eternal covenant of perfect-love.
Isaiah 40 speaks so beautifully to hope rekindled and covenant love eternal:
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God. “With gentle words, tender and kind, Assure Jerusalem, this chosen city from long ago, that her battles are over. The terror, the bloodshed, the horror of My punishing work is done. This place has paid for its guilt; iniquity is pardoned; its term of incarceration is complete. It has endured double the punishment it was due.”
A voice is wailing, “In the wilderness, get it ready! Prepare the way; make it a straight shot. The Eternal would have it so. Straighten the way in the wandering desert to make the crooked road wide and straight for our God. Where there are steep valleys, treacherous descents, raise the highway; lift it up; bring down the dizzying heights. Fill in the potholes and gullies, the rough places. Iron out the shoulders flat and wide. The Lord will be, really be, among us. The radiant glory of the Lord will be revealed. All flesh together will take it in. Believe it. None other than God, the Eternal, has spoken.”
In an era of enormous change and global trauma, lets lift our eyes to the hope of eternal glory, of the promised Messiah who came to restore us back to the heart and right standing relationship with God the Father.
The above speaks of 'wilderness' and I wonder what wilderness season you might have found yourself in this year as what was expected and known was fundamentally disrupted. IT could have been a wilderness season for you of not just physical isolation - but wilderness of heart, mind, body or soul. If that's you sister, hear the whisper of the Lord personally to you today saying,
Comfort my people. I am preparing a way. Most of all I am the way. The truth. And the life that you have been looking for. I am the Good Shepherd that tends to my lock, and does not leave my loved-ones forsaken.
To those who feel unloved, I call her loved. I put the childless and orphans into family. And I restore what is lost.
I am the one who replaces the crooked ways with the straight path. I promised an eternal covenant with my people O Israel (the holy lands and chosen nation) and i promise this to you today.
'The more we experience and are remade in perfect love, the more we can love'
In verse 9 the scriptures declare:
A voice says, “Declare!”
But what shall I declare?
All life is like the grass.
All of its grace and beauty fades like the wild flowers in a field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
as the breath of the Eternal One blows away.
People are no different from grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades;
nothing lasts except the word of our God.
It will stand forever.
This is not to say our lives are meaningless - the opposite in act - it that everything hinges on a revelation o who God is, eternally and within the 'thoneroom' of our hearts. It is God who gives restoration and balance to our lives. And a path made back to right standing with God has only been made possible through the gift of his son Jesus. Who made an offering of his life in covenant to pay for our sins, and do what we are unable in our own strength of understanding to do. And the best part, He did it willingly. He calls you worthy sister, and has done this act out of love, grace and mercy for you and I.
Will the one who did not ail to go all the way then, also not ail to deliver on the fullness of His promises to you today? He is your truest love of your soul, our great Prince of Peace, our mighty warrior, our counsellor and our friend.
'We have this hope as an anchor of the soul -sure and secure - Hebrews 4'
As the author of Hebrews goes on to say:
But when those days are over,” the Eternal One says, “I will make
this kind of covenant with the people of Israel:
I will put My laws on their minds
and write them upon their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be My people.
Sister, God loves you - and is faithful to fulfill the promises that He has written upon you heat. This Advent season, take a deep breath - and we are willing to be changed from the inside out.
Come away, let us adore Him - and spend some time with Him.
Comments