My appreciation of the advent season has grown tremendously in the last couple of years. Yesterday was the first day of the advent season, a season of anticipation, reflection, and wonder.
God's people in the Old Testament awaited the coming of a new king, one to set them free and set up a new kingdom. Their King came. Our King came. Now we are in the second advent, awaiting the second return of our King, Jesus. In this, the Christmas advent season, we prepare for the second coming of Jesus and commemorate Christ's first coming at Christmas.
Last year I discovered a wonderful online advent devotional. As of yesterday it is online again. It's called Following The Star and is a great way to begin each day of this advent season. A great way to slow down and reflect on our Savior and the difference He makes in our lives. Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids has a very nice advent devotional on their web site. See it here. Youth Roots as well, has one designed for youth and youth leaders. Find it here.
I am encouraged, as there seems to be a great deal of interest in the advent season. Traffic to my blog has increased nearly 4 times in the last few days, most of which are a result of searches for advent devotionals. Last night I received the following comment on the post I wrote last year.
Every year my girlfriend of 45 years sends me a "Blue Book" for Advent. She's in NJ and I am in FL, but every morning we read our book over the distance together. This morning I did my reading and prepared to read my email, when God guided me to your blog. It was not my intention to browse this morning, yet here I am. I went to the wonderful site - Following the Star. I shared it with my girlfriend. Her comment, "... this site is AWESOME. I truly enjoyed adding this to my Advent journey. I read the Blue Book and GOD CALLING before I get up each day and I'll be reading this as soon as I arrive at work....or on weekends, as soon as I can get myself down to the family room and the computer. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
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2 comments:
You're tagged. http://www.rodneyolsen.net/2007/12/thankful.html
Following the Star is a really great devotional! I've appreciated Rob Bell's/Mars Hill's other work, but couldn't find the devotional you mentioned.
I've also started one with a friend from seminary that's getting a lot of use on college campuses: it uses secular and sacred music and offers a "song-a-day" with Bible verses and a short reflection. A bit different, but it's been getting some great feedback after only a week: we're at http://adventmusicproject.blogspot.com and are always looking for ideas and feedback... Thanks for the other links, and peace to you this season!
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