Monday 12/12/2022

Freedom House Dayton Church

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Monday 12/12/2022

Psalm 126:1-6

December 12, 2022 • Psalm 126

Give

A heritage of joy! Israel’s long history included incredibly low times of misery at the hands of tyrants (notably slavery in Egypt—cf. Exodus 1:8-11, and exile in Babylon—cf. 2 Kings 24:13-14, 25:11). But it also included God’s action to deliver them in the Exodus and in the return from exile. Psalm 126 poetically recalled the joy of the times when God lifted them up from their humble status and prayed that God would again allow them to live in the joy of God’s deliverance. The first half of this psalm was a journey in memory. The Israelites never forgot the Exodus from Egypt—their “defining story”—nor the jubilation of being set free from exile. “Yes, the Lord has done great things for us,” the psalmist affirmed God lifting them up from their humble status was a permanent part of their history. What do you remember as a time when God did “great things” in your life? How do you keep that memory alive? The second half of the psalm became a prayer, based in the confidence that the same God who did great things in the past would do them again. Are there parts of your life in which you echo the prayer, “Let those who plant with tears reap the harvest with joyful shouts”? In what ways can this Advent season nourish your confidence that, in the words of Psalm 30:5, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning!

Prayer: Lord God, thank you for the times—like the birth of Jesus—when you did great things for your people. Help me to live in the confidence that you always lift us up and give us joy. Amen.

Saturday 12/24/2022

December 24, 2022 • Ephesians 3:14–19

Saturday 12/24/2022 Ephesians 3:14-19 A Prayer for the Ephesians 14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Paul’s letters included prayers he prayed for the Christian converts in the little house churches he raised up in Asia and Europe. In this passage sent to Christians at Ephesus, he asked lyrically that the Holy Spirit, dwelling in their hearts, would give all believers “the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth.” He used those geometric, almost architectural terms to express his belief that God’s love is enormous, bigger ultimately than any love we can imagine. Yet he believed that it was spiritually vital that we do all we can to grasp and experience that awesome love. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to make God love you less. May knowing that you are completely loved fill you with joy this Christmas Eve.

Friday 12/23/2022

December 23, 2022 • Romans 5:1–8

Friday 12/23/2022 Romans 5:1-8 Peace and Hope 5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For many Christians, the salvation God’s grace offers us produces times of awesome joy and peace. But human emotions are volatile and erratic. At times of pain or doubt, even the strongest, most confident Christ-follower may struggle to feel that “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.” That’s why Paul based our ultimate security not in how we feel at any given moment, but in an event. Jesus valued and loved us so much that he died for us.

Thursday 12/22/2022

December 22, 2022 • 1 John 4:7–16

Thursday 12/22/2022 1 John 4:7-16 God’s Love and Ours 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. In this passage John repeated that “God IS love.” All of us love someone or something at times (some of us more than others!). But John’s thought reached beyond that to say that the very essence of God’s being is love. “And how do you know that?” someone might have asked John. Advent pointed to the answer. We know God is love, John said, because God sent his only Son into the world on a saving mission.