Advent is a time of preparation. This devotion looks at silencing our hearts at Christmas to prepare for celebration of Jesus’ birth.
Nuggets
- We prepare for a God Who knows us, even if we are not His children.
- We prepare for being in a position for God to meet our needs.
- God will forgive us when we grieve over the condition of our relationships with Him.
- God wants everyone to accept salvation.
Devotions in Silencing Our Hearts at Christmastime series
Christmas is usually a really hectic time. We normally have very busy lives. Add all of the holiday events into the mix, and we get overloaded pretty quickly.
A couple of years ago, I did a series on Silence of the Soul. I had put some things back into the draft folder that I didn’t get to at the time.
I want to dig those out right now and look at them through the lens of Christmas. We are in the advent season right now.
What is advent? It is all about arrival.
What do we do when we are expecting someone? I know there is a whole lot of cleaning going on at my place. There is usually a lot of cooking, too.
So, in other words, don’t drop in on me unexpectedly. I need time to prepare for your arrival.
Let’s use this time of advent to prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christ’s arrival. We’re going to start out looking at why God takes interest in us, using Clarkson’s sermon to look at several verses.
If God didn’t have any regard for us, He wouldn’t have sent Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer. Because He did, we need to prepare our hearts for Jesus’ arrival.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
I used Clarkson’s The Goodness of God to Man as the foundation of this devotion.
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God Regards Us
“The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth” (Ps. 33: 13-14 ESV)
We prepare for a God Who knows us, even if we are not His children.
God created us to worship Him. Mankind chose to disobey Him, thereby ending our relationships with God.
That doesn’t mean that God could no longer see us. He can.
That doesn’t mean God just sees those who have submitted their lives to Him and have become His children. He can see everyone — “… he sees all the children of man” (Ps. 33: 13 ESV).
We have to go back to verse 12 to see why God is looking down upon us. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!” (Ps. 33: 12 ESV).
God created us, so God wants to bless us. That doesn’t mean He just wants us to be happy or privileged.
There is a religious definition of the word. Blessedness means we have been perfected.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
Glossary
Yes, God looks down on everyone, but God only blesses those who have submitted their lives to Him.
The beginning of submitting our lives to God is believing Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer. If we don’t believe that, we aren’t blessed.
We can only be blessed when we silence our hearts and believe in the Child of Christmas. We have to prepare our hearts to believe in Him.
God Meets Our Wants
“He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them” (Ps. 145: 19 ESV)
We prepare for being in a position for God to meet our needs.
Disciples are called to be dependent on God. Without God, we are nothing.
In this verse, there is another caveat. “He fulfills the desire of those who fear him …” (Ps. 145: 19 ESV). As with the last verse, God only fulfills the desire for those who truly submit to Him.
No, fear doesn’t mean we are terrified of Him. The fear of the Lord means awe, reverence and love, not terror. In other words, it means our attitude is correct.
This correct attitude fixes our relationship with God. “… he also hears their cry and saves them” (Ps. 145: 19 ESV).
What worldview people don’t always understand is that, once we are children of God, what we desire is what He desires. We aren’t living for our own selfish plan.
Our goal is to become like God. When we are imitating God and serving him, we gain His character.
Brigstocke told the benefits of curing the disease of sin. He wrote, “Thus he rises from the bed of sickness a wiser and better man; he has more sympathy in his heart[;] for others, and more gratitude towards the Great Giver and Disposer of all things.”
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Instead of the gratitude toward our Creator, though, worldview people despise their Heavenly Father. They think only of their desires.
That lack of fear and reverence do nothing to heal our relationships with Sovereign God. In fact, we remain in our sin.
Instead, we need to prepare for the Child of Christmas by adjusting our attitude to that of reverence and gratitude.
God Pities Our Grief
“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps. 103: 8 ESV)
God will forgive us when we grieve over the condition of our relationships with Him.
Why would God send us a Savior when we have disobeyed Him? He pities our grief.
When we are truly sorry for being disobedient to Him, God will forgive us. That is His character.
God is loving, forgiving, merciful, gracious, and compassionate. Because of that, He wants His relationships with us back on good footings.
Spenser felt David believed that God specifically wanted to be known as a merciful God. He had a great definition of mercy. He wrote, “Mercy is the intervention of gratuitous goodness. It is benevolence, bending in pity and compassion over the very creature, whose guiltiness has deserved the everlasting abandonment of Heaven.”
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Others told us about their take on God’s mercy.
- It is pity in His heart toward us.
- Mercy is often clarified by another word – great mercy, tender mercy, loving mercy, abundant mercy, and everlasting mercy.
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How does being in Christ silence our hearts? When we are children of God, we see His presence in our lives. This gives us renewed hearts.
Too many times we let that peace be stolen by thinking we’ve done something so terrible that God won’t be merciful. That isn’t the case. Our guilt doesn’t limit God’s mercy.
There is only one thing that we can do that God cannot forgive. He won’t forgive us if we don’t submit our lives to Him.
Spencer said it this way. He wrote, “There is no crime so odious, no circumstances of sinning amidst light and warnings, and the strivings of the resisted Spirit, so aggravating as not to be pardonable, when the sinner sincerely turns to Jesus Christ.”
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We rarely can think of mercy without thinking of grace. Grace is where He provided more than we deserved. Mercy is where He didn’t judge us to the extent He could have.
Because God is gracious, He is slow to anger. He is very patient with us.
God is the way He is because of another attribute – goodness. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23: 6 ESV).
God Loves Us
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (II Pet. 3: 9 ESV)
God wants everyone to accept salvation.
God has promised that Judgment Day will come. We will be punished for any sins of which we have not repented.
But God is taking His time fulfilling that promise. He wants everyone to get to the point where they truly repent of their sins.
We have to prepare for Judgment Day. We have to ensure that we have sincerely asked Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer.
Conybeare and Marshall gave us reasons why God is holding off Judgment Day.
- God doesn’t want to punish the good while He is punishing the bad.
- God can use delaying the punishment of some to influence others.
- Punishment will come on God’s definition of a day, not ours.
- The delay does not change any part of eternity.
- He wants to allow us time to repent.
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God never intended this world to be permanent. He knew even before He created us that we would disobey, and this world would end.
But don’t be deluded into thinking that God won’t ever issue a Judgment Day. He will hold us accountable for not choosing Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer.
God’s priority is our spiritual condition. His desire is that all come to repentance.
God doesn’t want anyone to perish. What is perish? “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (II Thess. 1: 9 ESV).
Making the Connections
We can silence our hearts because God is true to His promises. God has everything worked out. He designed the Plan of Salvation and sent Jesus to be the Child of Christmas.
It is up to us to silence our hearts and accept Him.
How Do We Apply This?
- Call on God to save us.
- Give Him the honor and reverence He is due.
- Love and praise Him.
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The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Father God. We are humbled that You designed the Plan of Salvation to save us. Help us to turn away from the call of the world and the hustle of the season to focus on Your Gift – Your precious Son Jesus. We ask Him to be our Savior and Redeemer. Amen.
What do you think?
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