Dear Grace family,
I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving – regardless of what you ate or who was (or wasn’t) around the table – remembering the great blessings that are yours in Christ and that every good and perfect gift comes down from the loving hand of your heavenly Father who never changes (James 1:17).
As we begin to turn our focus to Christ’s birth over the coming weeks, I encourage you to spend some time reflecting not only on what Jesus has done, but on who he is. We will be doing a brief Advent series in Matthew 1-2 over the next few weeks, to see how Matthew answers that question: “Who is Jesus?” I encourage you to spend some time reading through these passages, asking the Holy Spirit to show you Jesus (Jn. 12:21).
Those of you living with family might also consider using the Advent season as motivation to start (or revive!) the rich practice of regular family worship. Set aside 10 minutes or so each day as a family to gather together to read a small portion of God’s word, pray, and sing a psalm or hymn – maybe even sing some of your favorite Christmas hymns to help prepare your hearts. If you are unsure of how to get started, give me a call and I’d be glad to talk through it with you and share how it has been a blessing to our family (even if we sometimes stumble our way through it!). There are also a couple of good articles that can give you some pointers and motivation:
In Christ,
Pastor Eric