The Tenth Day of Advent

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

The Wonder of What God Has Done Through His Son:

An Advent Devotional Guide

For he [Jesus] was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

I Peter 1:20-21

I once heard a man say, “It doesn’t make any difference what you believe, as long as you believe something.” I was pretty stunned by his statement. He was a lot older than I, and I hesitated to challenge him, yet I just had to. I asked him if that made Hitler’s Germany all right, if believing in some kind of master race and exterminating all the ones unlike the fair-haired, blue-eyed Germans was okay. Our conversation deteriorated because he said I was misinterpreting what he said. I don’t think I was. Hitler’s Germany was based on a hope that they could mastermind a pure race, superior to all others.

The verse above from I Peter is not at all like that. Nor is it the kind of hope we often talk about today – like we hope it doesn’t rain; or we hope our casserole turns out well for Wonderful Wednesday; or we hope we win the lottery! This is hope (or confidence) placed on the accessibility and dependability of our Living God! This hope is tangible, something we can almost hold in our hands.

Peter tells us clearly as Christians where our hope is to be placed. In God. And not in just any god! In the God to whom we come through Jesus who died and was resurrected to make our hope possible. Jesus paid an enormous price for us to know God; he’s the one in whom we place our hope.

Father, Teach us to put our hope in you and you alone, even though all around us are temptations to do otherwise. Amen

The Wonder of What God Has Done Through His Son:

An Advent Devotional Guide
prepared for First United Methodist Church of Homosassa, Florida
Winter 2009
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator