Advent, Waiting with Hope

Advent begins - the season of awaiting the coming of the Christ Child.  

This week focuses on HOPE. 

...not a wishful kind of hope, rather the certain kind of hope, anticipatory waiting for something known to take place.

I've heard it illustrated this way...
From the time many young girls go to their first wedding, they dream of that day for themselves.  It is a wishful kind of hope.  Then they meet the person they want to spend their lives with and love develops. One day there is a proposal of marriage with an engagement ring to symbolize the promise, and now the wishful hope turns into a certain hope of the day to come and the lifetime of life's journey together to begin.  

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  HEBREWS 11:1

As the days of our life unfold, we experience joy and sorrow, abundance and want, laughter and tears, there is good and bad.  

Jesus said to his disciples:
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble. But take heart!  I have overcome the world.  JOHN 16:33 

In this week of Advent we focus on the certain hope of the Messiah, the Holy One, who became man, to live a sinless life in perfect obedience to the Father, and who gave himself as the sacrifice to redeem humanity.  By receiving God’s gift of grace, through faith in Jesus, there is life. Jesus said: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  JOHN 10:10

...the Christ Child, Jesus, 

was born in a manger 

to make a way to the cross 

It is through the resurrection that we can have confidence and certainty in this kind of hope. 

My prayer for you is to experience this kind of hope knowing how deeply God loves you!

The song "He Made a Way in a Manger" says this beautifully!  Enjoy..