Posts from December 2019

Posts from December 2019

Thanksgiving Communion

This past Thursday we gathered with friends and family to share a Thanksgiving meal and give thanks for the ways the Lord has blessed us. I found that this year I was far less intentional about giving thanks than I should have been. I gave thanks to the Lord for a few things in my mind but I got so wrapped up in family time that I didn’t stop and thank the Lord as I would have liked. I’m assuming…

Gospel-Centered Advent Reading Christmas Eve: The Christ Candle

Since the moment Adam took a bite out of the forbidden fruit we’ve all been waiting for a Savior to come and put things right again (Gen 3:15). We waited during the time of Noah and the flood. We waited during the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We waited during the years of captivity in Egypt and the years of spiritual rebellion in Israel. We waited under the good but broken King David and the bad kings who followed.…

Gospel-Centered Advent Reading Week 4: The Love Candle

The big story of the Bible is all about the one true God who chooses to love unloveable people. After Moses brought the people of Israel safely out of slavery in Egypt they came to a mountain called Sinai where God made a special covenant promise to love and care for them. Yet even as God was making this promise they made a golden calf to love and worship. God would have destroyed the people in that moment if Moses…

Gospel-Centered Advent Reading Week 3: The Joy Candle

Can you imagine the joy Adam and Eve must have felt to walk with God in the garden of Eden? They knew and experienced their Creator face to face. We can also imagine the despair they experienced when they were cast out of Eden for sinning against God. Yet in his mercy God began to restore the joy of knowing and experiencing him through a man he named Abraham and his descendants Israel.  God often leads people into trial so…

Gospel-Centered Advent Reading Week 2: The Peace Candle

In the beginning we had peace with God and each other. When we chose our way instead of God’s way we traded our peace for conflict and war. Humankind ruled with an iron fist and so God wiped all people but Noah and his family off the face of the earth with a flood. As the waters dried Noah sent a dove from the ark to search for dry land. It returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf. The dove…

Gospel-Centered Advent Reading Week 1: The Hope Candle

Creation began with hope. In the first verses of the Bible God called hope out of the chaotic darkness. Genesis 1:2-3 (NIV) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  At the beginning there was so much hope. Into this hope-filled world God brought the first man and woman, Adam and Eve.…