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PreparationHave I made room to receive Him?The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
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HopeThere is something better.But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 When our souls are in a season of waiting, we often find that our senses are heightened. Our eyes are wide open and ears are piqued to every little sound. We anticipate. We are watchful, ready for what
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HopeThere is something better.Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23 The Christmas season brims with promise. Something incredible is coming! We are hopeful as we believe the promise, but what happens when we can’t quite see the outcomes? When we speak out loud of the hope we have in Jesus, the enemy will try to sow doubt in our hearts. Will He really
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HopeThere is something better.So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. 1 Peter 1:13 The baby in the manger was the Word made flesh. Could that little baby truly be the answer to the brokenness on the earth? He came and dwelt among us to live as one of us and bridge the
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HopeThere is something better.And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness
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HopeThere is something better.This is a vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all— the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords
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HopeThere is something better.Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12 Nobody likes waiting. We live in a day of instant gratification. We know what we want, and we want it now. When our hope is delayed too long, we find ourselves in disappointment and disillusionment. We are consumed with the thought that things are simply not as they ought to be. That is the heart
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HopeThere is something better.The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined. Isaiah 9:2 To have hope is to believe there could be something better just around the corner. It’s a glimmer, a spark in the darkness. And when we have experienced that darkness, the piercing light is unmistakable and unforgettable. It illuminates the present and
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Restore Restore. It means to bring back or reinstate something from wrong to right. To rehabilitate, reestablish, or rebuild. Recall from Week 2 when we discussed the meaning of that little prefix, "re-". The word restore holds that same connotation of having something given back. The beautiful dance of give and respond between us and our Savior continues to unfold when we consider how He restores! In Psalm 51, David cried out to God
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Respond Respond. Ultimately, it is impossible to respond to something that you are not aware of. Responding requires listening. The word response comes from the Latin, responsum meaning "something offered in return." In English, it is used similarly and indicates an answer or a reaction. If there is no initial action, there is no baseline for a reaction. The word respond in and of itself indicates the need to give something back because it begins