Advent 2024: The Christ of Christmas
Who is Jesus? Over the last 2000 years, many people have tried to answer this question: historians, authors, skeptics, teachers, rockstars, celebrities, kings, and more. This question drives seekers to find the answer in many different places and ways. Each of us has been faced with this same question, and we need to have an answer. It’s important. Who is Jesus?
Embracing the Love of Jesus This Christmas
Do you ever pause to consider the true essence of Christmas? Beyond the twinkling lights, the festive gatherings, and the joy of giving and receiving gifts, lies a profound truth that can transform your life. This season, as we light the Love Candle on our Advent wreath, we're reminded of the incredible gift of Jesus' incarnation—a gift that not only leads to our salvation but also empowers us to love the world around us.
Advent Week Four: Love
If there is one thing that we all know deep down, it is that we are made for love. We all spend our lives searching for it. We want to find another person who will love us for who we truly are. Yet we are also terrified of the opposite. What if that other person will see us as we truly are and reject us?
Advent 2024 Week 3: Joy
What is joy? Is it an emotion? A decision? An attitude? Joy is hard to define, but Joy is even harder to have. Most of us struggle to consistently find joy in our lives. It is much easier to focus on our circumstances. Are they good or bad? Are you too busy? Is your mental health struggling? Is work going well? Do you have enough money? Hows your marriage? If things are well, we’re happy. If they’re not, we’re sad.
Finding Joy in the Unexpected
Have you ever felt like you were at the end of your rope, only to find hope in the most unexpected place? Imagine being a shepherd on a cold night, just doing your job, when suddenly the sky lights up with angels proclaiming the birth of a Savior. This is the heart of the Christmas story—a story of unexpected joy and hope.
Advent 2024 Week Two Reading: Faith
The culture has changed over the last few generations. We now live in a world where faith is something to shake your head at. It’s something only fools hold. It is seen as the opposite of reason, the delusion that religions use to control their followers. People with faith are those who bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge that science and technology have advanced past the need for any sort of God.
Advent 2024 Week One Reading: Hope
From the moment sin entered the world, from the moment that our evil choices broke our relationship with God, humanity has struggled to find meaning and purpose. We look around ourselves every day at the crooked and bent lifestyles of violence, greed, and hatred that are so prevalent in our world and it is difficult to figure out what can be done about any of it.
Discussion Questions for 12/17/23
Why do you suppose God chose such a quiet and strange way to enter into the world? Why did he not engage the political and social structures of his day?