You’re Invited, Advent Week 1

You’re Invited…

Advent Week 1:  Prophecy *****If you would prefer to LISTEN to this devotional CLICK HERE!****** Happy Monday Friends! I hope y’all had an amazing Thanksgiving.  If you’re anything like me, the Monday after a holiday is the hardest to get back to “normal” life….i.e.  no pumpkin pie for breakfast…ha..ha… This Christmas season, I will be posting an Advent devotional every Monday leading up to Christmas.  In it you’ll find a short poem, quick encouragement and action point for the week.  My prayer is this 5ish minutes at the beginning of your week will draw your heart closer to Jesus and that you are filled with Holy expectation through the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is alive and is longing to pour out His spirit in this Christmas season. As always, I am praying for you!  Week 1: Prophecy

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 51:3-5

The Lord will surely comfort Zion
and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

“Listen to me, my people;
hear me, my nation:
Instruction will go out from me;
my justice will become a light to the nations.
My righteousness draws near speedily,
my salvation is on the way,
and my arm will bring justice to the nations.

Encouragement:

Isn’t it amazing to think, that every human longing, every place of human brokenness, bondage and pain, every question of our hearts was answered the day Jesus was born. It was answered because His birth was the fulfillment of many prophecies foretelling the birth of Jesus that we can read about all throughout the Old Testament. One of them was the scripture reading for today.

As we begin this Advent season, my prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit moves within you to be expectant – expectant that the perfect Son of God who came to earth as human flesh, lived a perfect life, died on the cross taking away all our sin and shame and then rose again conquering death and the grave forever – giving us a way to not only be saved from our sin, live eternally in heaven but to have access to a daily relationship with Jesus Christ, to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit again and again, and continually commune with our perfect Father is alive and wants to move in your life in a real and powerful way this Christmas season!

I hope you just read that gospel summary and your heart leaped inside you, (if it didn’t read it again!) I pray your heart was overwhelmed with the longing for every scar, sorrow, impossible situation, bondage that you are walking through to be healed, delivered and overcome through the power of Jesus Christ inside of you! Let’s expect Him to move this Christmas season in a way we have never seen, He is longing too.

Action Point for the Week:

• Read through the scripture for this week again, (Isaiah 51:3-5, listed above)

Ask the Lord and write down what He says:

• Lord, where in my life do I feel like there is a wasteland or desert?
• In the places that feel hopeless, like a wasteland or desert, what are you wanting to do there?
• Jesus, give me a fresh gift of faith to believe that you can do what you just said you wanted to do in my wasteland and desert places!
• Lord, would you give me a promise from your Word (the Bible) to memorize and stand on in faith as I believe your word to me?

Want more Christmas season encouragement?   Click HERE to read last year’s Week 1 Advent Devotional.