MONDAY 1 DECEMBER
Isaiah 40.1-11
Here is your God
The old hymn says, ‘Advent tells us Christ is here.’ In this magnificent prophecy from Isaiah 40, we see foretold a very accurate description of God giving His (Divine) Son, Jesus, to the world to be its Saviour. It’s hard to believe that Isaiah penned these words hundreds of years before Jesus came into the world! They describe exactly the purpose and style of Jesus’ ministry.
For such a long time the people of the world had been weighed down by the guilt of their sin. Now it is declared that their sin has been paid for. What wonderful words of comfort these are! What Isaiah said took place when Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, when ‘God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5.21). Isaiah foretells John the Baptist preparing the way for the coming of Jesus – ‘the voice of one calling in the desert.’ He tells us that all the glory of God will be revealed in Jesus. He says to us, ‘here is your God.’ God, the sovereign Lord, had come to the earth with great power in the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to rule His people as their King. Isaiah says, ‘His reward is with Him.’ His ‘reward’ is all the people He has paid for, who respond to His invitation and let Him be their King. Jesus said, ‘I am the Good Shepherd.’ Isaiah describes how the sovereign Lord will rule His people like a shepherd looking after his sheep. He explains particularly the very, very deep love Jesus has for us all. Yes, the Bible makes it very clear how wonderful Jesus is. Let’s make this Christmas a time when we show God how much we appreciate His giving us His Son.
PRAYER: Father, as you foretold Jesus’ coming and paying for us and looking after us through your servant, Isaiah, help us to appreciate all you have done in Jesus. Help us to hold Him as close to our hearts as He holds us to his, through the same Jesus, our Saviour King. Amen.
TUESDAY 2 DECEMBER
Psalm 85.1-2, 8-13
Love and Faithfulness meet
When I was living at Cashmere I kept Chooks & Ducks. Every morning, when I fed my chooks, as they saw me coming down the path to their pen, they got all excited, pressing against the fence, eagerly awaiting the scraps I was about to give them. How happy they were when they pecked their way through them. The ducks didn’t get nearly so excited. They lolled around and pecked at their scraps when they felt like it. It was much more fun feeding the chooks! They were so responsive. This is a good illustration of what the Psalmist is saying to us in Psalm 85. God has a great deal of love for us. He came to give us this love – buckets full of mercy and kindness and forgiveness, etc. How are we going to receive them? – With eagerness like the chooks, or with complacency like the ducks? As God’s love is poured out it can only be received by our faithfulness. Faith is eager expectation that God will give to us. Faith is what makes us receptive to all God’s grace - His free gift of mercy, forgiveness, kindness and generosity. My chooks gave me so many eggs; the ducks only a few. As Christmas comes, let’s get excited about all that God is giving us. Let’s receive it eagerly. Let’s really enjoy all that God is filling us with. This will enable us to have so much more fruit for Jesus and yield a big harvest!
PRAYER: Father, as you pour so much love down on us and as you provide us with so many blessings, help us to eagerly receive all your grace and goodness. Fill us with faith to receive all you are giving us and so cause us to bear more fruit for you, through Jesus our wonderful Saviour. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 3 DECEMBER
2 Peter 3.8-15
God’s wonderful patience
Sometimes we get all upset with God when we pray and wait expectantly and He doesn’t seem to be answering our prayers. I am sure we have all had this experience! Today we see the reason why. With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. Actually, God is very patient with us and we can be sure that all our prayers will be answered. He promises us this. He will always keep his promises. He is, of course, 100% trustworthy.
Way back in the first century A.D., when the books of the New Testament were being written, everyone expected the Day of the Lord to come at any moment. We have been waiting 2,000 years and it still hasn’t come. With us it seems a long time, but with God it’s like a few seconds! God is waiting patiently because He wants heaven to be full. God wants no body to be lost. He wants everyone to respond to his offer of salvation. He wants them all to be changed into his likeness so they can be acceptable in heaven.
We all need to be patient as God is patient. As we pray, we need to think and act as if all our prayers have been answered. As we offer up our continuous prayer, we must rejoice always and be thankful in all circumstances. This will put us in a right frame of mind, which will enable us to live really holy lives. If our lives are without spot or stain, we will be at peace and ready for the end when it comes. We have something good to look forward to. When the earth is destroyed, it will be replaced with a new heaven and new earth. It will be a place where everyone will be living perfect lives; where it will be so easy to be holy. Here it’s a struggle to be good – there it will be impossible to be bad!
PRAYER: Lord, as we wait for all our prayers to be answered and as we wait for the end of this world, fill us all with patience. Help us to pray continually, rejoicing always with really thankful hearts, so we can be at peace and live really holy lives. Amen.
THURSDAY 4 DECEMBER
Malachi 3.1-10
Refiner’s fire – launderer’s soap
Jesus is the only one who can make us ready when He comes again to take us to heaven or condemn people to hell. To qualify for heaven we have to be 100% pure and holy. If we try in our own strength to purify ourselves, we will never be good enough! There is only one way, as Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one can come to the Father but by me” (John 14.6). When we approach heaven through Jesus (that is, through faith in Jesus and all He has done for us), He purifies us as a refiner’s fire makes gold pure and the best soap powders make your clothes white. Jesus makes us pure and holy. There is a stain in each one of us that is very difficult to get rid of. It is selfishness. It’s that part of us that makes it hard to give and share. Once Jesus has cleansed us in His precious blood, all selfishness is removed. Giving and sharing come as natural to us as breathing. God makes it so easy for us to bring our offerings to Him. Because all selfish attitudes have been washed away, we no longer find ourselves robbing God by withholding our tithes and offerings from Him. One of the favorite of all Christmas stories is ‘The Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens which tells how Scrooge was transformed from being such a stingy miser into such a generous person! The spirits of Christmas, past, present and future, changed him. They represent the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, which made him the happiest man alive, and how he made everyone around him so happy too! “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy,” Scrooge cried out before giving as he had never given before. Let’s pray that everyone of us will put our lives into the hands of the Man from Galilee and let Him purge out that spirit of selfishness, that we may have the happiest Christmas ever and make everyone else happy too.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, the most wonderful Man from Galilee, I put my life into your hands. Put me through the refiner’s fire and wash me with the best soap until the last stain of selfishness is washed out of me and I can give and share happily. This will make me happy and everyone around me happier, through Jesus my Saviour. Amen.
FRIDAY 5 DECEMBER
Luke 1.5-25
The birth of John the Baptist
As the prophets of old had said, God would send a special messenger to go ahead of the Messiah and prepare the way for Him. This messenger would have to be an extraordinary and special person! God always does things very, very well. Today we read of the miraculous birth of John the Baptist.
Zechariah and Elizabeth had been very disappointed. They had both grown to old age and had not been blessed with any children. Then this fantastic miracle took place. While Zechariah was performing his priestly duties in the holiest part of the temple, the angel, Gabriel, came to him with such a fantastic message. He told him that his wife would have a baby! Zechariah knew that humanly speaking this was impossible, so he doubted the angel. When God acts, no doubts can stop Him. Zechariah’s doubts were dissolved when God made him dumb. God made him sure that what the angel said was true. God made this elderly couple so happy. They were overjoyed because they were to have a son, but then joy bubbled over when they heard how very special their boy would be. He would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his birth and would live a very holy life, never to touch alcohol. He would be so holy because he had a very special task to perform in his life. His special job would be to bring many people back to the Lord and to help them turn away from their selfish, sinful lives so that they would be ready for Jesus. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest, but the least in the Kingdom of God was greater than he (Luke 7.28). That means that each one of us is greater than John! How holy God wants us to be because He has a special task for all of us! He wants to help us prepare everyone’s hearts so Jesus can come and dwell in them. We must tell everyone about Jesus and show by exemplary lives how wonderful Jesus is.
PRAYER: Father, thank you for the miraculous way you molded John the Baptist to prepare people for the coming of Jesus. Fill us with your Holy Spirit that we may have the power to convince everyone that they need Jesus and that we may show what He can do for us by living exemplary, holy lives, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
SATURDAY 6 DECEMBER
Mark 1.1-8
John prepares the way
We saw yesterday that John the Baptist was made by God’s miraculous power to be an extraordinary man for an extraordinary ministry. God gave him the power to preach very convincingly and persuade the people to repent and turn away from their sins. Through the sacrament of being baptised in the River Jordan, they were given God’s forgiveness. John prepared the way for the people to accept Jesus. Before we can accept Jesus into our hearts and be given a new life, we have to repent of our sins and be willing to turn away from them. Jesus is greater than John the Baptist. Once we let Him into our hearts, His power works a great miracle in us. He goes further than forgiving our sins; He makes us into brand new people. I can remember a lady saying after she had accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour, “I feel so good. I feel like a new born baby inside.” She felt so good because she was born again as a daughter of God. As John baptised with water, Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit. The very first baptisms of the Holy Spirit took place on the day of Pentecost. Jesus had prepared the disciples for the baptism and told them to wait until they had received it. He promised them they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they would be His witnesses. The story of the Acts of the Apostles is the remarkable story of what happened when Jesus’ disciples were baptised in the Holy Spirit. They turned the world upside down and all history in half. God’s power broke in to change the world. Jesus is still baptising us in His Holy Spirit today, giving us the power to bring the whole world back to God.
PRAYER: Jesus, as John baptized you with water, please come now and baptize each of us afresh with your Holy Spirit. Give us power and make us your witnesses. Enable us to turn the whole world back to God. Jesus, empower us. Amen.
SUNDAY 7 DECEMBER
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
John the Baptist prepared the People for Jesus’ ministry by preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As they made a decision to turn away from their sins and obey God they were baptised in the River Jordan. The washing with water symbolised the washing away of their sins. It opened their hearts to receive the Lord Jesus: To receive the wonderful words that He spoke and to receive Healing and salvation.
Isaiah the prophet could see into the future. God told Him that He would pay for our sins and set us free from them. This is exactly what Jesus did when He died on the cross for us. He payed the price for our sins by taking the punishment our sins deserve. As Saint Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus has prepared our hearts so that He can come and live in them. All we have to do is to accept this by faith, by trusting that He has done it for us. When Jesus lives in our hearts He completely transforms our lives and causes us to be born again as completely new people.
Jesus wants to stay in our hearts all the time and to keep them pure. To enable tis to happen Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit. As John the Baptist predicted in today’s gospel Jesus would baptise us in the Holy Spirit. When we became Christians we were baptised in water. Now Jesus baptises us with the Holy Spirit. That means He immerses us completely in the Power of the Holy Spirit.
We become saturated with Holy Spirit power. He pours love into our hearts giving us the power to give and forgive. He makes us very powerful witnesses for Jesus. He makes us ready for His second coming.
When we are baptized in the Holy Spirit Jesus gives us lots of gifts and uses us to draw people to him and prepare them for His second coming. He empowers us to help Him populate Heaven!!!
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for sending John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus First Coming to Earth by baptizing people with Water. Thank you for allowing Jesus to go to the cross and take all our sins away. Lord Jesus, please baptize all of us with the Holy Spirit and empower us to be powerful witnesses for You by helping you to populate heaven. Amen.