Prepare Ye the Way

An older post.. but still relevant to us now. Blessings as we start the advent season!

Alicia's Roses

His Kingdom Come website is currently running a series of advent devotionals. They are posting a new one each day until Christmas. This is the one that I wrote for today.. enjoy.

As we enter the season of advent, we can begin to prepare our hearts for the celebration of the Christmas season. Of course, in our materialistic culture it is always a great challenge to keep our focus as we resist the temptation to run around madly after the “ things of this world.” We have a choice and this is the right time to decide how we are going to spend this precious time.

As those who follow the Lord, this can be a very rich opportunity.. a time to prepare ourselves for a greater experience of His presence as we begin to focus on the Son of God in a more intentional way. Christmas is a consumer…

View original post 415 more words

Enter His gates

..with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name! The Bible is full of messages encouraging us to give thanks to our God. How easy is it to complain? I don’t know about you, but I have no trouble finding something to complain about. It becomes second nature to focus on our cirumstances..especially the challenging ones and to forget that each and every day is a gift from God. He is the giver of life.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner.. it is not too soon to prepare our hearts for this amazing day of celebration. I have always loved this holiday.. somewhere inside I knew it had great meaning. Although I was not raised in a Christian home, God seemed to be speaking to me and reminding me that He was the one we were thanking.  Next week we have a new opportunity to gather with loved ones and enjoy a meal together..to proclaim the goodness of God in the land of the living. We have so much to be thankful for..this country is abundantly blessed..we can look almost anywhere else in the world and see problems that are much greater than the ones we have here.

We live in warm homes with all the things we really need. We have food and clothing and we can walk outside our homes in safety. We live in a nation with so much freedom..we have so many choices. We may not have everything we want..many of us face very difficult challenges..we may suffer in many ways..but we are blessed beyond measure. Our God is with us and will never forsake us. We have the opportunity to rejoice in this..to share it with one another..to proclaim His faithfulness.

Life here is far from perfect..that fact cannot be changed but our God is perfect. He knows us and He reveals His love for us through the things that happen to us. His desire is to remind us of the way He loves us and cares for us. We each have stories of how He has intervened for us and how He has never abandoned us..we need to share these stories and remind one another. What a great time of the year.. another chance to “enter His gates with Thanksgiving!”

” I will put my hope in God! I will praise Him again–my Savior and my God!”