Month: December 2019
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Full Joy
Psalm 126, Isaiah 12:1–6 Around Christmas, joy is used a lot. Many Christmas songs use the word, a lot. What is joy? Without defining it, we leave it to the world to define it for us, which is dangerous, for the world misses so much without God. For us, we need to look at joy…
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Saturday after the Second Sunday of Advent
Psalm 33:16–22, Luke 21:25–28, Titus 2:13–3:7 (read online ⧉) Waiting is hard. The psalmist is waiting for God. The psalmist grasps the truth that an army—no matter how big and powerful—will not save a soul. Such an army might save the physical wellbeing, but physical wellbeing is not the ultimate goal of God’s salvation. Often…
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Anticipatory Expectation
Romans 8:18–25, Revelation 5:1–10 (read online ⧉) What are we expecting? What are we anticipating? Expectation and anticipation are not always positive, as we often “wait” for the other shoe to drop. It is in this mindset that anxiety can step in and take over us. Creation is personified in Paul’s text. This anthropomorphic thinking…
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12 December 2019
Isaiah 26:1–6, Psalm 18:1–9, Nehemiah 6:15–16 (read online ⧉) What is hope? Hope is knowing deeper than deep that God has got your back. The struggle for us is that having our back doesn’t always mean avoiding pain or consequences. Isaiah’s vision of Jersualem is that of a city that can withstand whatever the world…
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Stars of Hope
Genesis 22:15–18, Deuteronomy 1:10, Isaiah 54:1–10, Romans 4:13–25 (read online ⧉) Twice God promised Abraham (and once for Jacob) that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Imagine all the stars without our modern lights drowning them out. For Abraham that was a promise beyond expectation, and certainly beyond anything that God needed…
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Deepest Hope
1 Samuel 1:12–20, 2 Kings 4:8–17, Hebrews 11:32–40 (read online ⧉) For many people having a child is the deepest yearning that they have. Not everyone is able to have children. Some have gone through miscarriages. Many more have gone through stillbirths. Still more lose their children when they were young. When dreams of our…
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Hope in Death
Isaiah 4:2–6, Romans 6:1–11 (read online ⧉) If you have been steeped in Christian thinking you can read this passage as an obvious foreshadowing of the Messiah (Jesus). Let’s set aside our Christian thinking, and look at this from a beaten and downtrodden people. This passage provided hope beyond the darkness for them. The dark…
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Hope Together
1 Chronicles 29:14–19, Psalm 31, Isaiah 2:1–5 (read online ⧉) It is pretty universal across humanity for people to question their value and their purpose. In the ancient world, the view of gods was often not particularly positive. Much of the activity was done to appease the wrathful gods and to “bribe” them enough to…