How should you prepare for the coming of the King?<\/p>\n
We are entering the season of Advent \u2013 the weeks leading up to Christmas when we celebrate the incarnation and birth of King Jesus. Prior to that first coming of David\u2019s promised descendant, many devout Jews, like Simeon, were \u201cwaiting for the consolation of Israel\u201d (Luke 2:25). They lived \u201crighteous and devout\u201d lives, feeding on God\u2019s Word, serving His people, proclaiming His promises, eagerly anticipating the fulfillment of every promise by the \u201cGod of Amen,\u201d the \u201cGod of Truth\u201d (Isaiah 65:16).<\/p>\n
Today we can profitably use this season prior to Christmas to prompt ourselves to live similarly as we wait for the final consolation, eagerly anticipating the fulfillment of all the remaining promises by the same God of Amen.<\/p>\n
But note: God grants a partial fulfillment of those promises today! <\/em>As we long for the final consummation, \u201call the promises of God find their Yes\u201d in Christ Jesus. And that \u201cYes\u201d means that today<\/em> He establishes us, He anoints us, He seals us, He puts His Spirit in us (2 Corinthians 1:20-22) so that \u201cas He is, so also are we in this world;\u201d indeed, \u201clove [is] perfected with us\u201d (1 John 4:17).<\/p>\n This is how we rightly celebrate Advent today: Not as a preparation for gift-giving or carol-singing, but in living our lives today in light of God\u2019s promises and their present and future fulfillment.<\/p>\n Consider Psalm 81 in this regard. Like us, the Israelites of the psalmist\u2019s day had been redeemed by God (out of Egypt) and had received God\u2019s promise that through their offspring all the nations of the world would be blessed. But, like us, they suffered over the years from both external enemies and their own internal tendency to stray. In words that echo the opening lines of the Ten Commandments, God says:<\/p>\n \u201cHear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! \u00a0There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. \u00a0I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. There are at least five explicit or implied commands here \u2013 five imperatives that tell us how to live in anticipation of God\u2019s fulfilling His every promise:<\/p>\n How do we open our mouths wide? What does that mean?<\/p>\n Surely it means in part obeying the first four commands: Feed on His Word, worship Him with joy, preach the Gospel to yourself daily, and guard your heart. The fight for joy in God consists in part in this internal fight to believe God\u2019s promises and to trust Him with our thoughts, affections, and emotions.<\/p>\n But \u201copen your mouth wide\u201d also implies our stepping out in action. <\/em>Step out to serve \u2013 and God promises to fill you and use you in ways beyond your imagining. Open your mouth wide to speak the Gospel \u2013 and God promises to give His power to that proclamation, to work miracles of salvation and encouragement. Show love to the hurting \u2013 and God promises to infuse that love with His own, so that the comfort received is the comfort of God Himself.<\/p>\n Do you see? When we rightly prepare for the (second) coming of the King, we not only prepare ourselves; we not only prepare those around us; we actually display the coming Kingdom now! <\/em>God so works through His forward-looking people that His Kingdom is manifest today <\/em>in acts of mercy and words of grace.<\/p>\n So how will you celebrate Advent? Who can you encourage? What mercy can you show? With whom can you share the Good News of God\u2019s grace? How will God\u2019s Kingdom come \u2013 today! – through you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How should you prepare for the coming of the King? We are entering the season of Advent \u2013 the weeks leading up to Christmas when we celebrate the incarnation and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,16,1],"tags":[109,296,2441,641,2443,880,2442,1205,2440,1409],"class_list":["post-3100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-devotions","category-evangelism-blog","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-christmas","tag-consolation-of-israel","tag-gods-promises","tag-hardness-of-heart","tag-kingdom","tag-open-your-mouth-wide","tag-preparation","tag-psalm-81","tag-second-coming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3100"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3105,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions\/3105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/sup>“But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes. \u00a0Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him, and their fate would last forever. But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” (Psalm 81:8-16)<\/p>\n\n