The best parts of life, like the birth of a baby, teach us to long for the fullness of Christ’s second coming. And the most brutal parts of life, like the miscarriage of a baby, teach us to long for the fullness of Christ’s second coming.

Perhaps the reasons we love Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol go deeper than we were aware.  

The real Christmas story has more grit and grime than we often realize.

The balm of love we give our children each night as we sit with them on their beds is only a dim reflection of God’s love for his redeemed.

In surprising and wonderful and unexpected ways, God pursues his people for their good.

The Christmas story is a creation story. Except this time, instead of hovering over the chaos and darkness of the void, the Creator stepped right into it.

We should never allow ourselves to become too disconnected, too protected from the needs of a broken, dying world crying out for a Savior.

Sometimes news is more than just news. Sometimes news is the message of total destruction. Sometimes news is the story of our undoing. Sometimes news is the story of our redoing. The breaking news of that first Christmas Day was both.

My husband reached over and held my hand. “We can go home. It’s up to you.” My heart raced in my chest as I looked up at the people pooling in through the open glass doors of our church. In that moment, my theology warred against my angst: My love for the local church versus my social anxiety.

Though Christmas is not about you, Christmas is undoubtedly for you.

In this excerpt from the recently released Gifts of Grace: 25 Advent Devotions, author Jared C. Wilson reminds Christians that their local church is a gift from God.

In this excerpt from the recently released Advent devotional The God Who is With Us, author Ronnie Martin reminds us that despite what our circumstances might tempt us to believe, God wants to clothe us with is love.