Advent Devotional – Week 5
December 26 – He Came!
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. —JOHN 1:10–11
In earlier verses in John’s Gospel record, we have read in remarkably brief and simple words of the eternal past and of the eternal Son. We are told that from the beginning He was God; that He made all things, and that in Him was Light and that in Him was life. Surely, these powerfully simple words and phrases are at the root of all theology. They are at the root of all truth. How thrilling it is for us, then, to receive in these two words, He came, the confirmation of the Incarnation, God come in the flesh! I confess that I am struck with the wonder and the significance of the limitless meaning of these two words, He came. Within them the whole scope of divine mercy and redeeming love is outlined. All of the mercy God is capable of showing, all of the redeeming grace that He could pour from His heart, all of the love and pity that God is capable of feeling—all of these are at least suggested here in the message that He came! Beyond that, all of the hopes and longings and aspirations, all of the dreams of immortality that lie in the human breast, all had their fulfillment in the coming to earth of Jesus, the Christ and Redeemer.
I am filled with gratitude, O Son of God, that You came to us to save us! You are our hope! Amen.
A. W. Tozer on the Son of God (p. 397). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
December 27 – United with Deity
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. —2 CORINTHIANS 5:14–15
When Christ became humanity, He made it possible for us to get up into deity—not to become deity but to be united with deity. God counts Christ’s death to be my death and He counts the sacrifice Christ laid down to be mine…. When will we realize and confess that every sin is now a moral incongruity? As believers, we are supposed to have died with Jesus Christ our Lord. When we were joined to Him in the new birth, we were joined to His death. When we were joined to His rising again, it should have been plain to us that sin is now a moral incongruity in the life of a Christian. The sinner sins because he is out there in the world—and he has never died. He is waiting to die and he will die once and later he will die the second death. But a Christian dies with Christ and dies in Christ and dies along with Christ, so that when he lays his body down at last the Bible says he will not see death.
Glorious Son of God, how marvelous that You would become human so that we might be joined to God. May the union we share with You today be strengthened and confirmed. Amen.
A. W..Tozer on the Son of God (p. 398). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
December 28 – Very God of Very God
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. —COLOSSIANS 1:15
Now, the Bible has a great deal to say about the manner in which sinful man may come into the fellowship and the presence of God, and it all has to do with forgiveness and grace and regeneration and justification in Jesus Christ! It all boils down to the teaching that Jesus Christ is everything that the Godhead is! The image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person—all of these we find in and through Jesus Christ! We believe with rejoicing that Jesus Christ was the begotten of the Father, before all ages, that He is God of God, Light of light, very God of very God, begotten and not made, of one substance with the Father, and it is by Him that all things were made! … He was and is and can never cease to be God, and when we find Him and know Him, we are back at the ancient fount again! Christ is all that the Godhead is!
How amazing is Your plan of redemption, Lord, that through finding Christ we find You. Let me know Him more, that I may enter into fellowship with You. Amen.
A. W. Tozer on the Son of God (p. 399). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
December 29 – Faith and Holiness
We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 1 JOHN 3:2
The Bible does not approve of modern curiosity that plays with the Scriptures and which seeks only to impress credulous and gullible audiences! I cannot think of even one lonely passage in the New Testament which speaks of Christ’s revelation, manifestation, appearing, or coming that is not directly linked with moral conduct, faith, and spiritual holiness. The appearing of the Lord Jesus on this earth once more is not an event upon which we may curiously speculate—and when we do only that we sin! The prophetic teacher who engages in speculation to excite the curiosity of his hearers without providing them with a moral application is sinning even as he speaks. There have been enough foolish formulas advanced about the return of Christ by those who were simply curious to cause many believers to give the matter no further thought or concern. But Peter said to expect “the appearing of Jesus Christ.” Paul said there is a crown of righteousness laid up in glory for all those who love His appearing. John spoke of his hope of seeing Jesus and bluntly wrote: “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” Are you ready for the appearing of Jesus Christ? Or are you among those who are merely curious about His coming?
Heavenly Father, grant that I would be ready for the return of Jesus by living by faith and in holiness. Amen.
A. W. Tozer on the Son of God (p. 400). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
December 30 – Jesus Will Come
And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever … and said, “There will be no more delay!” —REVELATION 10:6
We are living in a period when God waits in grace and mercy. In His faithfulness, God is calling out a people for His name—those who will in faith cast their lot with Jesus Christ! Then, at a time known only to God, the end of this age will come, and Jesus Christ will return to earth for His own believing people—His church. The event is certain—the timing is uncertain. When the mighty angel of Revelation shouts his signal and raises his hand heavenward, it will be eternally too late for unrepentant sinners. When the time comes in heaven for that announcement, three worlds will hear it. Heaven will hear it, with full agreement that the time of judgment has indeed come. The underworld of hell will hear the shout, and there will be fright. And on earth, the saints, the believing Body of Christ, will hear it and be glad! Meanwhile, the church is not simply a religious institution. It is an assembly of redeemed sinners, men and women called and commissioned to spread Christ’s gospel to the ends of the earth.
Lord, while I look forward to Your return to restore justice and order to this fallen world, my heart is burdened for my friends and loved ones who haven’t accepted You yet. Lord, I pray that each one will yield to Your Spirit. Amen.
A. W. Tozer on the Son of God (pp. 401-402). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
December 31 – Come, Lord Jesus
He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. REVELATION 22:20
The people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world! Fellow Christian, consider the source of our joy and delight: redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, our yesterdays behind us, our sin under the blood forever and a day, to be remembered against us no more forever! God is our Father, Christ is our Brother, the Holy Ghost our Advocate and Comforter! Our Brother has gone to the Father’s house to prepare a place for us, leaving with us the promise that He will come again! Don’t send Moses, Lord, don’t send Moses! He broke the tablets of stone. Don’t send Elijah for me, Lord! I am afraid of Elijah—he called down fire from heaven. Don’t send Paul, Lord! He is so learned that I feel like a little child when I read his epistles. O Lord Jesus, come Yourself! I am not afraid of Thee. You took the little children as lambs to Your fold. You forgave the woman taken in adultery. You healed the timid woman who reached out in the crowd to touch You. We are not afraid of You!
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
A. W. Tozer on the Son of God (pp. 403-404). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
January 1 – Faith in Which Jesus?
You are righteous, LORD, and your laws are right. The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy. —PSALM 119:137–138
To manipulate the Scriptures so as to make them excuse us, compliment us and console us is to do despite to the written Word and to reject the Living Word. To believe savingly in Jesus Christ is to believe all He has said about Himself and all that the prophets and apostles have said about Him. Let us beware that the Jesus we “accept” is not one we have created out of the dust of our imagination and formed after our own likeness.
True faith commits us to obedience. “We have received grace and apostleship,” says Paul, “for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name” (Rom. 1:5). That dreamy, sentimental faith which ignores the judgments of God against us and listens to the affirmations of the soul is as deadly as cyanide.
That faith which passively accepts all the pleasant texts of the Scriptures while it overlooks or rejects the stern warnings and commandments of those same Scriptures is not the faith of which Christ and His apostles spoke.
Loving and Gracious Savior, I repent of the ways in which I have believed the truth about you selectively. Grant that I would believe everything the Scriptures reveal about You so that I would know You fully and honor You with my whole life. Amen.
A. W. Tozer on the Son of God (Location 357). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.