Posts Tagged ‘Devotional’
4-Week Advent Devotional: An Invitation to Welcome
What is Advent?
Advent focuses on the season of expectation as those of us who are Christians anticipate the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth at Christmas. Throughout Church history, Christians have observed Advent, first to celebrate the incarnation of Jesus, and then to look forward to someday when He will return.
Today, the four Sundays before Christmas are an opportunity for the Church to remember the birth of Christ, celebrate what His life and death meant for the world, and look forward to the day when He will come again.
We call this season Advent, when we reflect on the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace and acknowledge each as a good gift from God that can give us a unique way to think about our relationship to Him.
All four weeks of Advent lead up to the culmination on Christmas Day when Christians celebrate the gift of Jesus Christ’s arrival on earth!
Answering the Invitation
The Christmas season is special for Christians – because as we prepare our hearts to celebrate Jesus Christ’s arrival on earth and welcome His presence, we have an opportunity to welcome our new neighbors – arriving immigrants and refugees.
Jesus said, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
Matthew 25:35
We believe that this verse and the season of Advent provide an opportunity.
It is a call for us to welcome strangers, including immigrants and refugees, the same way we would want to welcome Jesus!
Download the Advent Devotional: Invitation to Welcome
That is why we created this Advent devotional guide for you. It’s an invitation to join with your friends. Your loved ones. A small group. Or your family. Together, this is a guide for celebrating Advent in light of our Christian calling. Will you join us and learn about our calling to create just communities of love and welcome?
More Advent Resources from World Relief Chicagoland:
Love Remains: Devotional Series
In times like this, when fear and uncertainty threaten to overwhelm us, it’s helpful to take a step back and ground ourselves in the truth of who we are and whose we are. The gospel message we celebrate at Easter is one of absolute, unconditional love. You are more deeply loved by God than you can possibly imagine, and it is out of this love that we find the courage to stand.
This truth remains even amidst a crisis. The early church, itself, was birthed in a time of crisis and grief, right on the heels of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension.
On the night of his arrest, Jesus gathered with his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane and acknowledged the fear and uncertainty they were likely experiencing. He said, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world!”
We are all experiencing some amount of trouble this Easter season. Yet, during this time of crisis, my prayer is that we would heed Jesus’ words and take heart, for he has overcome the world! Though it might be tempting to fall back into fear in this time, my prayer is that you would lean in with courage. Lean in and ask, “God, what do you have for me in this season? What do you want to say in the middle of uncertainty? Who do you want me to be, and what are you calling me to do?”
It is with these questions in mind that our team has developed a four-week devotional titled: Love Remains. We invite you, starting on April 20th, to join us on as we study portions of Acts. We’ll discover how the early church blossomed in the wake of Christ’s ascension and how we are a part of that continued growth and restoration today.
As we each take time to sit in the presence of God, my hope is that the church would emerge as a people fully known and loved by God, now empowered to extend that same love, healing and courage to others. May you find that it is when we most want to look inward the Spirit seems to call us outward.
You’ll see this very sort of story reflected in this devotional series as the early church, in the midst of crisis, came together in love and moved forward in spirit-filled action. Couched in the knowledge that God would always be with them, the early believers found a way to move through fear and answer God’s compelling call — a call to love, a call to serve, a call to be a transformative light in the midst of a dark world.
It is our hope that as you experience his love in this season you, too, would find the courage to stand, and to be an irresistible witness for Jesus to all who are confused, scared and suffering during these times.
Scott Arbeiter retired from World Relief in 2021 as president after serving the organization in various roles for more than two decades and is a former pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
A Season of Lasting Change
On Christmas Eve, we celebrate and anticipate the birth of Jesus.
A thousand years before Christ was born, the Israelite elders approached the prophet Samuel and asked him to appoint them a king. They saw a king as the solution to all of their problems as a nation.
But God knew a king wouldn’t solve the deeply entrenched and longstanding issues their nation was facing. Poverty, violence and oppression — these things and more plagued Israel, just as they plague our world today. God knew that if he was going to bring real and lasting change, he’d need to do something radical, something unexpected, something that would uproot the sin that caused so much suffering and grow into a global movement.
That something was Jesus.
This Christmas, we’ve been celebrating the lasting change God brought to us through Jesus. He weeds out and redeems the sin in our own lives and invites us to join him in creating lasting change in the lives of others.
Those of you who have been journeying with us through our Christmas Devotional know that change that lasts often starts small, but it rarely stays that way. Change that lasts takes time. It grows deep roots, then spreads to impact others. Jesus understood this far better than the rest of us, and this holiday season, we celebrate him as Immanuel, God with us.
If you haven’t yet, we invite you to join us in our study of lasting change throughout scripture. Download the Change That Lasts Christmas Devotional and invite God to show you what lasting change he wants to do in and through you.
Merry Christmas!
Rachel Clair serves as a Content Writer at World Relief. With a background in creative writing and children’s ministry, she is passionate about helping people of all ages think creatively and love God with their hearts, souls and minds.
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