Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

THE SEASON OF ADVENT STARTS THIS SUNDAY

This Sunday marks the start of the Advent season! A season that celebrates the “advent” or “coming” of Christ into the world. Looking backward to that time when “the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation” to us through the virgin birth, perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. Looking forward to “our blessed hope” when he returns again to bring his people into the fullness of all he’s accomplished for them. Over the next 4 Sundays, we’ll remember and anticipate as we worship the One who came from heaven to earth and is coming back to usher in a new heavens and earth.

A WEARY WORLD REJOICES

Get ready to celebrate the Savior as we sing well-loved songs, enjoy a season of rest and festivity, enjoy events like Carols in the Park, and top it all off with a traditional candlelight Christmas Eve service.

As we prepare our hearts to enter into this time which is so full of so many wonderful things, would we prioritize the most wonderful of them all: Jesus Christ who was born for us. Prioritize the Christ of Christmas this season and prepare your heart to celebrate his birth by:

  • Studying the birth of Christ - As an individual or a family. Open up God’s word, study the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth, and walk through a Christmas devotional as you count down the days to Christmas, light candles around an Advent wreath, and fix your hearts and minds on Christ. Here are a few suggested resources:

  • Singing the birth of Christ - Not just on Sunday mornings, but throughout the entire season! Fill your mind and heart with songs that celebrate the coming of Christ and sharpen your affections for him. Add the following to your Christmas mix:

  • Spending time with brothers and sisters in Christ - This Christmas season, prioritize Christ by prioritizing his people. Take advantage of our December “Fallow Month” by prioritizing fellowship with one another in the church. Use the times during the week we’d normally meet as a church to: participate in seasonal festivities in DTSA, have a game night, host another family for dinner, or do whatever you enjoy with other members in the church.

  • Sharing the good news of the birth of Christ - Make your joy in Christ more full by sharing it with others. Pray for opportunities to share the good news of Christ’s birth with those in your life who have yet to receive him this Christmas season. Plan on inviting your friends, families, and neighbors to our Candlelight Christmas Eve Service at 5pm on 12/24.

HIS POW’R AND GLORY EVERMORE PROCLAIM

We can’t make too big a deal of what’s bound up in our Advent celebration. We can’t exhaust the riches of God’s grace in giving us his Son. We can’t plumb the depth of the wonder that heaven came down for sinners like us. We agree with the words of Charles Spurgeon and carry them into our time of celebration:

“It is an astonishing thing that there should have been a Christ at all: the Incarnation is the miracle of miracles; that he who is Infinite should become an infant, that he who made the worlds should be wrapt in swaddling bands, remains a fact out of which, as from a hive, new wonders continually fly forth.”

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