HOW TO USE THIS RESOURCE
These posts will be organized around the four weeks of Advent, beginning November 28, 2021. There are five entries per week. Each day, you’ll read and mediate on an opening scripture and you’ll confess your sins with a guided prayer of confession and assurance. You’ll then read a Psalm, a selected Old Testament passage, and a New Testament passage. We’ve provided a question for reflection each day to help identify important threads in those scriptures. The scripture readings are intended to compliment the sermon from the previous Sunday.
We’ll also be reading the Apostles Creed and the Lord’s Prayer each day. Why do this? The Apostle’s Creed reminds us of the essence of our faith. We are believers who believe this. There is power in rehearsing over and over the Good News we’ve given our lives to. In praying the Lord’s Prayer, we’re praying the very words Jesus gave to His disciples when they asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Christians have been practicing this prayer daily for centuries. It’s good for us to pray as the Lord Himself prayed.
We’ve also provided prayer prompts and space for your own personal requests. As important as it is to pray the words of Jesus, scripture also invites us to “make our requests known to God” (Phil. 4:6). You can use this space to record and pray for any pressing issues in your life or the life of our church.
The final entry of this blog series will be for use on Christmas Day and it will be structured like the other days. You could use this the morning of Christmas before opening gifts or over Christmas dinner with your family or in the quiet, waning moments of Christmas night.
These posts are designed either for personal or family use. It’s our hope that the Spirit will use this to turn our eyes towards Jesus during Advent and Christmas, “the Everlasting Wonder” of the Incarnation -- instead of getting swept up in the parties and commercials and gift-buying and schedule-making and cookie-baking (as wonderful as those things can be).
May Jesus be made known to, in, and through The Church at Greer Station!
Read & meditate
I was glad when they said unto me, “We will go into the house of the LORD.”
Psalm 122:1
Confession of sin
God you are the One high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy. A righteous judge who feels indignation every day, you whet your sword for those who refuse to repent, declaring, “There is no peace for the wicked.”
Our thoughts, words, and actions condemn us. We idolatrously covet power or pleasure. Our hearts harbor filth that erupts in curses and words of wrath. We show partiality by snubbing your children.
Lord, we repent. We turn to you who have proclaimed yourself “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, . . . forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin.” We rest in you, graciously justified through faith in Jesus Christ.
Written by Ben Estelle
ASsurance of pardon
We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved
Ephesians 2:3-5
scripture reading
Day 1 - Psalm 40 / Exodus 1-2:10 / Hebrews 3 / What similarities are there between Jesus and Moses?
Day 2 - Psalm 141, 142 / Exodus 2:11-24 / Hebrews 4:14-5:10 / How does God know and respond to our groanings?
Day 3 - Psalm 143 / Exodus 3 / 2 Peter 1 / What does God promise to the Hebrews and how is our redemption better?
Day 4 - Psalm 144 / Exodus 15:1-21 / 2 Peter 2 / How is God both Savior and Judge?
Day 5 - Psalm 145 / Exodus 34 / 2 Peter 3 / How is it that God can forgive iniquity but not clear the guilty?
RECITE THE APOSTLE'S CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
PRAY THE LORD'S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Personal Prayer
Petitions (requests for yourself – work, decisions, growth in Christ, fighting sin, etc.)
Intercessions (requests for others – our church, the global church, our nation, family, friends, etc.)
Mission (pray for lost friends & family, missionaries, unreached people groups, etc.)
Thanksgiving (gratitude to God for health, blessings, salvation, etc.)
Concluding Prayer
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.
*In saying we believe in “the holy catholic Church,” we are confessing our belief in the universal people of God across all times and places (lower-case "c" catholic), not the Roman Catholic Church (big "C" Catholic).