Category: Church Calendar

MATTHEW 1
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: ²Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. ³Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. ⁴Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon. ⁵Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, ⁶and Jesse begot David the king.

David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. ⁷Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. ⁸Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. ⁹Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. ¹⁰Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah.¹¹Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

¹²And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. ¹³Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. ¹⁴Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud. ¹⁵Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob.¹⁶And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. ¹⁷So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
We have just read Jesus’ family tree from the Bible. Our family tree tells us something about us; it tells us where we came from and who our people are. In the same way, Jesus’ family tree tells us something about where Jesus came from and who His people are. It shows God’s love for His people throughout the centuries. It shows that God is continually at work in our world. And, it shows that His faithfulness continues to reach to all generations as His covenant love goes from parents to children. The genealogy of Jesus teaches us that the only way we can get from Abraham to David to Jesus is because of God’s providence. Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, is evidence of God’s planning. That the promises made centuries earlier to Abraham and David are fulfilled in Jesus is proof that it is God who is at work here. The genealogy of Jesus reflects the working out of God’s plan of salvation in history.

—Pastor Randy Booth, Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Nacogdoches, Texas

PRAYER
Our gracious heavenly Father, Your kind providence has directed all the details of history, including the birth of Christ, our Savior, as well as our own birth and life. We are thankful that You use even sinful men to accomplish all Your holy purposes. Teach us to remember Your faithfulness in the past so that we might rest in You for our future. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

ADVENT APPLICATION
Discuss with your family how God has used your family tree (the good and the bad) to providentially bring the gospel to your household. Discuss how our adoption by God, through Christ, makes all the genealogy of Jesus our own.

ISAIAH 9:6
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
In the verse we have just read we heard one of the greatest prophecies concerning the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Throughout this prophecy we have a wonderful display of the Person of our Lord Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at this time of the year. First, Isaiah declares that He will be a child born. Jesus entered into human flesh just as you and I do, through birth. As we heard in our first reading this week the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is fully man.

But then Isaiah declares that He is also a son…given. Jesus Christ is more than a mere man like you and me; rather, He is the eternal Son of God who has been given. Jesus is more than just a child, He is God of God, very God of very God, as our Nicene Creed declares and which we confess in our worship each Sunday. Jesus is fully God, for only God could accomplishwhat Jesus accomplished.

And what did Jesus come to accomplish? Look closely at the important phrase added to each of the two statements: He wasborn and given to us. Jesus Christ was born and given to us; He came to save His people (see verses 3 & 4), us, those whom the Father gave to His Son from all eternity; those whom the Father gave the Son as His inheritance so that they might be brought into the eternal covenant of salvation through the saving work Jesus accomplished on their behalf. Again, we confess this very truth every Sunday in our worship service using the Nicene Creed, when we say, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. Jesus is our Savior.

In this season, set aside by the Church, we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the reality that God gave Jesus to us and for our salvation. As St. Matthew will write, and which we will read in a couple days, Jesus came to save His people from their sins. He was given to us to do what we could not and cannot do for ourselves—save ourselves from our sin and God’s judgment against our sins. Let us also celebrate the reality that God has given us, you and me, each of us, to His Son for our salvation, and that He is mighty to save.

—Pastor Galen Sorey, Christ Presbyterian Church, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

PRAYER
Our eternal and most blessed God and Father, we thank You for the gift of Jesus, given by You, and for our salvation. We thank You that in Your eternal and unchanging love You have given us to Your Son, to save and to keep through all our lives. Thank You for the gift of Your Son and thank You for the gift of our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, AMEN.

ADVENT APPLICATION
Discuss with your family how each of us can know with assurance that Jesus Christ came for us and to save us. Discuss the magnitude of our own sinfulness and our total inability to save ourselves. Discuss the unchanging love of God displayed to us in the person of Jesus Christ and His being given to us and for us and for our salvation.

HEBREWS 1:1-2
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, ²has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
God is not silent. He speaks to His people. In the Garden He walked with Adam and Eve. After the Fall, God spoke through signs, wonders, stories, and prophets. From a burning bush to a man robed in camel’s hair, God continued to speak. From a donkey to educated men to a shepherd and a fruit-picker, we learn that God does not leave His people alone.

These signs, wonders, and prophets speak the word of God, the gospel of the coming Christ. Each repeats the Proto-Evangelion, the message heard from the beginning that a victor would arise to crush the serpent. With Moses this repetition took the form of, “The LORD God of your fathers . . . will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt . . . unto a land flowing with milk and honey . . . and, you shall not go empty.” Isaiah declared that “unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.”

Standing on the shoulders of these men, John the Baptist linked their words to Jesus. He prepared the way of the Lord by calling Israel to “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near.” Jesus, he declared, was the mighty victor—one so mighty that John felt unworthy to even untie His shoes.

Now the writer of Hebrews tells us that God still speaks. To that of the prophets God adds the voice of his Son. Jesus repeats and then fulfills their words—a messenger better by far. Let us rejoice in the Advent prophecies for they stand fulfilled. And as Jesus goes forth victoriously, let us heed the Father’s command, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him.”

—Pastor Todd Davis, Christ Church, Searcy, Arkansas

PRAYER
Almighty God, you are not silent; therefore, give us ears to hear that which the Spirit says unto the Church that all your words might be fulfilled as we worship You, who together with Jesus and the Holy Spirit rules in a kingdom without end, AMEN.

ADVENT APPLICATION
Discuss with your family how the Living Word is made known through the written and spoken word. Discuss how sermons, studies, and readings strengthen our faith. Discuss Jesus’ authority as the Living Word of God and the surety of His word’s fulfillment.

COLOSSIANS 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. ¹⁸And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. ¹⁹For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, ²⁰and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
Have you ever wondered what God is like? Do you think of Him as a kindly grandfather or as a stern King with a fearsome countenance? The Bible answers this question by pointing us to Jesus. Paul makes plain that Jesus is the exact image of the invisible God. When we see Jesus, we are seeing what God is like. He is not indifferent or unfeeling. Rather, He is grieved over our suffering and sin. He is not filled with frustration or bitterness toward us. Rather, He is one who sympathizes with our weakness and our sorrows and calls us to repentance and obedience. In Jesus we actually see the invisible God in all the glory of His sacrificial love, humility, and mercy – as well as in His saving power. In Him the fullness of God dwells. God not only reveals His nature in His Son but through Him accomplishes His loving purposes for the world. The world was created through Him and for Him and He constantly upholds it by His power. By His death, He reconciled the world to God making “peace” through the blood of the cross. By His resurrection, He has been made the “head” of the Church and given the preeminence over all things. Above everything else, Paul wants us to see the supremacy and centrality of Jesus Christ in all things. The more we see Him and know Him, the more we understand who God is and what He has done – and, the more clearly we see this, the more clearly we understand who we are and what it means for us to live for the glory of God. Jesus shows us what it means to be truly and fully human. We, therefore, are to imitate Him. As He was the full image of His Father, so we must be conformed to His image. We must live in the way He lived among men. As He laid down His life for the world, so we must live lives of sacrificial love for the world. As He has been exalted over all things, so we must seek to glorify Him in everything we say and do.

—Pastor Steve Wilkins, Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, Monroe, Louisiana

PRAYER
Our gracious heavenly Father, in Your infinite love and mercy, You sent Your Son into the world so that we might know You and be restored to our true callings as Your children through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Enable us to know Him and to increase in our love for Him, so that we might be conformed to Him and live for His glory throughout all our days. All for the glory and honor of Your Son who is the King of kings and Lord of lords and who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, AMEN.

ADVENT APPLICATION
Discuss with your family what Jesus was like during His life and how that reveals God’s nature. How can we grow in likeness to Him? Where do we fall short? How may we love one another as He has loved us? How can we love our neighbors and show the love of God to them?

JOHN 1:18
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
Just as we saw from verse 14, that the Word, who is God, took on human flesh, and lived among men and was seen by men, as the glorious one who is from the Father in heaven, so this verse teaches us that the ministry of Jesus upon the earth was a ministry of revelation. What kind of revelation? A revelation of God himself, particularly the Father.  The incarnation of Jesus was not something outside of God’s character. It was not something done by Him that was foreign to His nature. Not at all.  In fact, Jesus, in His incarnation, was expressing and revealing the very character of God.  By taking on our human flesh, and living in it for thirty-three years, Jesus was revealing to us, was telling us, about our Father in heaven. Even though no man has seen the Father, as He is a Spirit and does not have a body like men, nevertheless, through the life of Jesus we do see and come to know the Father. Jesus could do this because He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who has been in communion with the Father for eternity. And so through His life on earth, the love and community that He enjoyed with the Father is displayed for us, even as we are invited into that community ourselves! Through Jesus, we come to know the Father in heaven as our own Father.

—Pastor Burke Shade, Cornerstone Reformed Church, Carbondale, Illinois

PRAYER
O heavenly Father, we thank you that you have not left us alone to wonder in ignorance about your love and character. We thank you that you have revealed yourself to us through the sending of your Son in our flesh, that we may know you, love you, and obey you. Teach us to believe and to remember at all times that no man comes to you but through your Son Jesus. AMEN.

ADVENT APPLICATION
Discuss with family members how knowing Jesus reveals the character of God the Father in heaven. Point out that in knowing and trusting in Jesus as our King and Savior, God’s people are also placed into relationship with God the Father as their own Father. Point out how Muslims don’t and can’t know the Father and His love because they don’t believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God.

Note: These readings and devotionals are prepared by several pastors in the CREC.

JOHN 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ^2He was in the beginning with God. ^3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ^4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ^5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
Our Advent meditations begin with the recognition that in the ancient pagan world, this gospel proclamation begins with a statement that the Greeks might misunderstand and therefore accept in the wrong way. The philosopher Heraclitus had used the term Logos in his speculative philosophy, and so when John starts out by saying something apparently inscrutable—the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God—the sentiment might have seemed suitably opaque to them. But John is doing something quite different. He is engaged in overthrowing the ancient wisdom, not compromising with it.

In v. 14, we will discover that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us. For the apostles, and for all faithful Christians since, the Incarnation means that ultimate Truth has a birthday, and a mom, and ten fingers, and a liver. This kind of thing was absolutely appalling to the ancient philosophical mind—foolishness to the Greeks, as Paul noted.

There are indications that this is where John is deliberately taking us, right from the start. He begins with the same language that starts the book of Genesis (v. 1). We are talking about a new creation here, not another ethereal world elsewhere. The Word was with God in the beginning, and the Word was God. Lest there be a mistake, John repeats it. He was in the beginning with God (v. 2). And then the philosophical Greek encounters his first great difficulty. The earthiness of God’s Word is seen in the fact that He made every single thing, and not one created thing was made apart from Him (v. 3). Ultimate reality is not contaminated by matter, but rather rejoices over its origin, calling all of it good. Not only was this Word creative, but He was filled with life. He is no impersonal principle, and His life is the light of men (v. 4). He is the living God.

When this Spoken God, this Word, comes into the world, He shines in the darkness of this world. And as He does so, the darkness cannot comprehend what is going on. But fortunately, the darkness is not there to be persuaded, but rather to be banished by the arrival of the Light.

And so this is what we anticipate every Advent, and this is what we are privileged to see celebrated yet again. The Word was with God; the Word was God. The Word is with man; the Word is man.

—Pastor Douglas Wilson, Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho

PRAYER
Our great Father, we rejoice before You as the God who fulfills all Your promises. We glory in the mystery of the Incarnation, knowing that we worship You through the one who is fully God, and fully man. We remember that He is Your apostle, representing God to man. And we call upon You to remember that He is our high priest, representing us to You. We receive Him by faith, as the Creator, as the Spoken God, as the life of men, as the light of the world, and as the conqueror of all the darkness in the world. We pray to You in His strong name, the name of Jesus Christ, and AMEN.

ADVENT APPLICATION
Prepare the members of your family to think of Advent and Christmas in very material terms. This is not a season that celebrates vague spiritualities, but rather the season that celebrates God taking on flesh. The instinct to give gifts, to eat chocolate, to cut down a tree in the woods to bring it home, is therefore all very healthy and in line with the holiday. Matter enables us to give, and not just to grab.

Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle!
9 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory!

It is hard to escape the historical implications of the resurrection. Christ has died and we died. Christ is risen and we are risen with Him. But also, history dies and history is risen with Him on the third day. However, there is more. Redeemed humanity rises and ascends (Eph. 2:6). Our citizenship is in heaven. We live heaven-like. Our ethics is heavenly, but also our worship is heavenly. By the Spirit, we ascend as a people to worship Father, Son, and Spirit. This is why we pray each Sunday that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Heaven will become earth and earth will become heaven. This is what Ascension Sunday teaches.