Advent Devotions

The good news which comes to us first through prophets such as Isaiah and now through the Servant, Jesus Christ, announces to us that in spite of our rebellion God stands ready with eagerness to save His people from their sins. He has gone to great lengths to rescue us, restore us, and reconcile us.

The Servant found strength in remembering the future fruit of His work; we too should, with strength, go out today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our earthly lives to labor faithfully, for much good awaits us.

In the moments of greatest pain and difficulty, God the LORD fulfilled His promise to the Servant. He answered Jesus. He kept Jesus. He helped Jesus. He did not help by removing Jesus from the suffering. Instead, He encouraged Him and strengthened Him for enduring obedience, so that the greater glory would arrive.

Does your heart, upon inspection of your life, cry out, “vanity, vanity, all is vanity? If so, take comfort. You have One who serves you even now from the throne of heaven who knows exactly how you feel.

As God's Word goes out, He sees to it that the message produces the fruit He desires. So then we must, with encouraged hearts, faithfully take the Word across the street and to the ends of the earth.

God has revealed Himself in Jesus as both able to save and ready to save. Let us not sit idly by as men and women remain in darkness all while salvation is possible in and through Jesus.

Perhaps hopelessness seems to press in on you from every side. Though your lungs fill with air, you are suffocating. Turn your attention upward to the God of these great promises. Behold His Servant.

If you will publish in the streets the good news of the Servant’s work your neighbors will experience deliverance. If you publish the good news in the nations, foreigners will enter the kingdom, and if you publish the good news in your own heart you will see with clarity.

Many thought Jesus would come to set up His kingdom through power and strength. Many looked for a promised Messiah who would would rally the troops, collect weaponry, and go to war with the powers of the world. Instead, God sent Jesus His Servant who quietly, lovingly, and gently laid down His life.

The great news of Christmas is that God sent Jesus, His servant, so that the great delight and pleasure the Father knows in the Son might be also known by us, now and forever.

God the Father works to present to Israel and to all the nations the magnificent beauty and eternal glory of Jesus Christ.