ADVENT DEVOTIONAL 2022
How to use this devotional:
Thank you for taking one of our Advent Devotionals for 2022. It is our prayer that the words you read will enhance your journey through the Advent season.
Advent means waiting. For hundreds of years, the people of Israel were waiting for their promised Messiah to come. They experienced great hardship, they made many mistakes. They won and lost many battles but through it all the thread of Messiah’s coming was woven into the fabric of their history. Then, all of a sudden, in a Bethlehem manger, their old prophecies came true. Their promised messiah had come indeed. God had become man in the form of Jesus Christ.
We wait on Christmas much like the people of Israel waited for Messiah. We experience the highs and lows of the season. We have fun parties, we have boring parties. We see pretty lights and decorations even while we struggle with our own ornaments and or forgo the experience entirely. Families laugh together and sometimes they fight. We have plenty and we have little. And when we finally get to the day, it comes all of a sudden, almost unexpectedly.
This devotion is for those who live regular life and desire to trace the thread of Jesus through their holiday season. It is for people who know true Christmas is about a journey with Jesus, not just a morning of gifts. These devotionals are short and the scriptures (NASB) used are included in the devotional material. They are meant to help you mark your spiritual way through the month of December. They are not burdensome, but gentle reminders for us all.
Merry Christmas and may God bless you as you seek Him in this special way here at Immanuel Baptist Church.
“O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell;
O Come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel.”