For Advent - Jesus Is the Rock

Because Jesus is the Rock, I want The Rock in My Stocking, this year and every year! Plus, I want to grow closer to the "Rock" every day!

In order to do that I enjoy reading an advent devotion every day during the season. Focusing on a bit of scripture and then a few thoughts to take with me every day help me focus on the real reason for the season instead of the commercialism we find all around us.

Take a moment every day during the Christmas season to enjoy a time with the one whom we celebrate. Don't let the pressure of the world steal the joy He was born to bring.

The first Sunday in Advent is the beginning of the official "church calendar." It's a great place to begin because it's the time we use to prepare to celebrate Christmas.

I personally love to celebrate Advent because as an adult it's Advent that allows me to appreciate Christmas the way I did when I was a child. The anticipation that Advent builds and the way that it helps me focus on the heart of the holiday makes this season one of my very favorite.

God Reveals Himself to His Creation

Deuteronomy 32:1-4
God is the Rock

In Eastern Ohio coal country, every Christmas season finds children threatened with lumps of coal in their stocking if they aren't "good." While the thought of getting that black "rock" is enough to encourage children to behave for a few weeks, there's another Rock whose birth has transformed hundreds of millions of lives throughout the years. It's this precious "Stone" we want in our stockings this Christmas.

God spent years preparing us for Jesus' coming. Little by little through the ages, our Creator "Revealed" Himself to us. In today's scripture from Deuteronomy, He begins to show us that He is the Rock.Moses sang this song of praise to God. He understood that the Heavenly Father was like a huge rock, a boulder, immovable, steady and consistent, able to judge fairly, refreshing, strong, righteous and perfect!! This is the kind of Rock we need in our stocking.This week as we begin to prepare for Christmas, let's spend a few moments praising God for being a God we can trust, a changeless, dependable, eternal Creator, a "Rock."

God Gets His People Ready for Things to Come

Zechariah 3:7-9
The Stone That Will Remove our Sin

In addition to revealing to the world the truth of who He was, God spent those first few thousand years letting his people know His plans. In fact, this scripture we read today was written 500 years before Christ was born, yet, even then, God wanted His people to be ready. He wanted them to know that He was making a way to take away our sin.During the Christmas season, we focus on the baby in the manger, but God told us years before His birth, that the One He would send would be much more than a baby. Zechariah told us to be ready because God intended to send a stone, a solid and reliable way to finally take away our sins forever. Before Jesus, our sins required sacrifices, lambs, goats and more. But even in the midst of the sacrifices, God showed His people that He had a better plan. That better plan was Jesus. Just like God’s people had to be ready for Jesus to be that stone that removes sin, we must be ready for Christ to remove our sin, to make us new and turn us into people worthy of celebrating the birth of the Stone who takes away all of our sin.

God sends Jesus, our Rock and Redeemer

Psalm 19
The Rock who is our Redeemer

Redemption is a big word we don’t use very often. If you’re talking about a loan, it means to pay it off or buy it back. If you’ve pawned something, it means to rescue or recover it. It also is used to mean something exchanged for something of value or converting one thing into another. It’s interesting that Jesus came into the world to do every single one of those things for us. He “paid off” the debt we owed and bought us back from evil. He wants to rescue us, to bring us into a place of recovery. He gave His life in exchange for ours and wants to convert us into what His Father originally created us to be. Jesus was born to be a Rock who would Redeem us. This week as we light three candles, we’ll remember that we must believe that God is who He revealed Himself to be and be ready to accept everything a baby born in a manger did for us, a baby born to be a Rock . . . Our Redeemer

God Restores His Creation to Himself

Isaiah 51:1-3
The Rock that I Am Cut From

Are you chasing after Christlikeness? Do you passionately want to be like God? If so, then Isaiah tells us to look to the Rock from which you were cut. If we want to be like Christ, we must look to Christ.

And for those who truly do focus on Christ in the midst of life, there is restoration. God Revealed Himself to us so that we would be Ready when our Redeemer comes to Restore us to Himself. Since the beginning of time, in the Garden of Eden, God has been showing humans this one truth: our Maker wants relationship with us, and He has plans to restore that beautiful relationship that mankind destroyed a very short time after He gave them paradise.

God promises that if we focus on the Rock from which He cut us to be living stones, He will be compassionate to us and make our dry deserted places joyful and abundant. But ask yourself tonight, Am I living a life that's Ready for God's Restoration?

God's Gift to Humankind

Luke 2:1-20

A Rock in Mary's stocking . . .

A Rock under Joseph's tree . . .

A Rock for Angels to sing about . . .

A Rock for the all the sheep . . .

When Jesus arrived in Bethlehem that night, no one dreamed He'd ever be called "The Rock," and while the Angels singing and the message Gabriel gave Mary nine months earlier revealed clues, was anyone really ready for a baby born in the most humble of circumstances to be the Redeemer of all?

Tonight, if you have one, light the final candle. Be reminded that Christ is perfect and holy, blameless and true. Think about the way God has revealed Himself to you and to the world and be ready to dive in to serving Him. Pause for a moment to let it sink in that Jesus Christ is God's gift to you, a Redeemer sent to take away all of your sin because your Heavenly Father's greatest desire is to restore you. No matte what you've done or who you are, Christ came for you, God sent a baby to be your sacrifice, your Redeemer, your Restorer, your Friend