Thursday after Ad te levavi, The First Sunday in Advent
Posted on December 5, 2019 by under
Scripture: Hebrews 1:1-4 (NKJV)
1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Devotion
People have a natural desire to see and know God. Many describe themselves as “spiritual” and want to experience blessings from a “higher power”. But when they hear the truth about God, sinfulness makes a lot of people look in all the wrong places.
God has given us profound spiritual knowledge in His Word, and He has given us a very clear image of His love and righteousness in His only begotten Son. Sinful hearts have second thoughts about being spiritual or seeking a higher power when they are confronted with “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” But by His grace He still seeks to come to us, and by His power and Spirit He works to give us faithful eyes to see and ears to hear. True faith creates a real desire to be spiritual and to know the One who is higher than us.
The Jews tried to find spirituality in Moses and the prophets while resisting Jesus. It didn’t work. People today continue to seek spirituality apart from Christ and His Church, and it won’t work either. Only faith makes us able to truly see and appreciate the spiritual blessing of God coming to us and saving us from our sin and death. This is the greatest and truest gift that anyone can receive from on high.
We pray: Stir up, we beseech Thee, Thy power, O Lord, and come, that by Thy protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Thy mighty deliverance; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
