How to use this guide:
- At least once or twice during each week, use this as a guide for your time with God.
- Feel free to read just one of the readings, just one of the songs, just one of the prayer prompts.
- Come back to it later in the week and feel free to read the same scripture as before, the same song as before, or choose another one.
Week 1 – Starting Sunday, December 1st
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1
The theme for the first Sunday of Advent is Hope. Advent means “coming,” and we must recognize the waiting that comes along with Hope. It is leaning into the realization that although He has come, we still have waiting to do until He comes again.
If you step into any retail store this time of year, you might think Advent is just about counting down the days until Christmas morning when everyone gets to tear into their presents. According to that version of Advent, waiting just means flipping the day on a cute snowman calendar or eating a piece of chocolate each day.
But that’s not the version of Advent that Christians have been practicing for centuries now. It is about what we do after we have prayed, “Our Father in Heaven, may your name be made holy, may your kingdom come, may your will be done – on earth as it is in Heaven,” but before those three requests have been made a reality in our lives and in our world. So how can we practice Advent this year?
First, we must place ourselves within the waiting that so many generations had to endure before the promised Messiah came. Then, we reflect on the waiting that we continue to endure. For prayers yet to be answered. For healing that has yet to come. For Christ’s sanctifying work in our hearts that has yet to be complete. For the promise of a new creation, a new heaven and earth, that has yet to come.
We will get to joy. For now, we can lament. We can be honest with our sorrows, our doubts that the coming will ever come, our confusion about what the word “soon” means.
Below are some readings and practices to help you engage with God about HOPE.
Reading and Learning
READ: Luke 2:22-38
READ: Psalm 46
READ: Psalm 130
READ: Psalm 131
WATCH: The Bible Project on Hope
Music
LISTEN: “Watchman” by Josh Garrels
LISTEN: “The Reckoning” by Andrew Peterson
LISTEN: “Be on the Lookout” by Caroline Cobb
LISTEN: “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” by Paul Zach
Practice
Find a quiet place and come to quiet in your mind and your heart. Remove distractions. Use a paper journal to write down your experiences during this practice.
In prayer, enter a conversation with God about your waiting and your hope.
- Is there something you have been praying for and you are still waiting on the answer? Talk to God about that. Tell Him how you feel. Ask God to speak to you about that request.
- Thinking forward to this Christmas season, tell God what you are hoping for. Ask Him how those hopes align with God’s will for you.
- Thinking backward to your past, thank God for a hope fulfilled.
- Meditate on the following phrase: “Jesus, you are all I need and all I could ever hope for.“
Week 2 – Starting Sunday, December 8th
“Be still, and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10
The second week of Advent calls us to contemplate the Peace of Christ. Imagine that serene, quiet evening with the young family and their new baby in the “little town of Bethlehem.” After the hurriedness of a long trip and the stress of the impending delivery, they could finally breathe. The sounds of nature, sounds of the night. The occasional interruption by a cow or goat or sheep. Peace. Take a moment and come to quiet. Place yourself inside that stillness…
Zoom out just a bit, though, and we get a stark contrast. An occupying Roman government that is bent on keeping their idea of peace through violence. A local ruler, Herod, that in just a few short years will slaughter untold numbers of babies because of this new baby and his own insecurity, pride and ambition. So called “spiritual” leaders who are so bent on tradition and their own political influence that they succumb to the Roman violence machine, finish the job that Herod started, and put this baby to death about 3 decades later. Then a few short decades later, the Romans finish the job they themselves started 60 years before Jesus was born and finally destroy Jerusalem, the temple and many Jews. Peace?
We do our best to create little versions of this peaceful, serene setting during the Christmas season, don’t we? We’re looking for that same still peace. Christmas decorations, those moments of stillness looking at the Christmas lights, quiet nights at home watching Christmas movies – fill in the blank for your own traditions. But we have the same contrast, don’t we? Christmas is the busiest time of year. Stress comes with the full calendar, the pressure to shop and to fulfill expectations, the arguments we get into with our kids during those moments we painstakingly crafted for the season, and the grief that so often accompanies this time of year. Not to mention the violence and strife all around our world today. Peace?
One of the amazing aspects of salvation is that it brings us into a new relationship with our Creator Father. Or as Peter came to realize, “This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” (Acts 10:36 NLT) Or as Paul concluded, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.” (Romans 5:1 NLT)
We must start there. We are at peace with God through Jesus. Only from that foundation of peace can we truly experience peace in any other area of our lives. We must let that begin to move out into every part of our lives, replacing anxious toil with peace, replacing worry over our self-worth with peace, replacing striving for status with peace, replacing frustrated vengeance with peace.
Below are some readings and practices to help you engage with God about PEACE.
Reading and Learning
READ: Luke 1:26-38
READ: Psalm 4
READ: Isaiah 2
READ: Colossians 1:15-22
READ: Ephesians 2:11-18
WATCH: The Bible Project on Peace
Music
LISTEN: “There Will Be a Day” by Caroline Cobb
LISTEN: “Mary’s Song (Our King of Peace)” by Wendell Kimbrough, Page CXVI
LISTEN: “O Christ, Draw Near” by Paul Zach
LISTEN: “All is Well” by Sandra McCracken
LISTEN: “Patient Kingdom” by Sandra McCracken
LISTEN: “Make Room” by The Sing Team
LISTEN: “MATIN: Rest (A Set of Quiet Songs at Sunrise)” by Jess Ray
Practice
Find a quiet place and come to quiet in your mind and your heart. Remove distractions. Use a paper journal to write down your experiences during this practice.
In prayer, enter a conversation with God about anything in you or around you that is in opposition to his peace.
- Do you have internal conflict because you are struggling to accept the fact that you are truly at peace with God and that there is nothing between you and your Creator Father? Where are you striving trying to earn your right relationship with God?
- What about this season this year is causing stress, anxiety, pressure to perform or other negative emotions? Talk about those things with God. Ask him for his perspective on those things. Ask for his peace.
- Is there a place where you are contributing to a lack of peace in someone else? Ask God to help you become a peacemaker in that situation.
- Meditate on the following phrase: “Jesus, you have done all that is necessary for me to be at peace.“
Week 3 – Sunday, December 15th
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13
The third week of Advent invites the joy of Christ’s appearing to swell inside of our hearts. Joy is an act of the will and an experience in the emotions. It is a present experience, but it is anchored in the past with gratitude and anchored in the future with hope. Thus, it is tightly connected with Advent, as Advent is both backward looking and forward looking. We look back at Christ’s first coming and we look forward to Christ’s second coming.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and an apparently very important one as it is listed right after love. Like all the fruit of the Spirit, it is not automatically conferred in full measure at the point of salvation. It is fruit. It grows over time if given the fertile and cultivated soil needed to flourish.
In the absence of the experience of joy, it does us no good to beat ourselves up for not feeling joy, or to sit around and passively wait for this joy to suddenly just appear. What can we do? We can cultivate the soil of our hearts and trust the promises of our God that he will grow the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
Below are some readings and practices to help you cultivate God’s JOY.
Reading and Learning
READ: Luke 2:8-21
READ: Psalm 16
READ: Hebrews 12:1-3
READ: Matthew 13:1-23
WATCH: The Bible Project on Joy
Music
LISTEN: “Joy to the World” by The Sing Team
LISTEN: “New Song” by Folk Hymnal
LISTEN: “Hallelujah, Christ is Born” by Caroline Cobb
LISTEN: “Hope is Alive” by Ellie Holcomb
Practice
Find a quiet place and come to quiet in your mind and your heart. Remove distractions. Use a paper journal to write down your experiences during this practice.
In prayer enter a conversation with God about his joy:
Look back with gratitude. Look back at Christmas. Thank God for coming to earth to rescue us. Thank God for the obedience of Mary, Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Anna, Simeon and all those who played their part in the story – too many for us to know this side of glory. Thank Jesus for his faithfulness to finish the work he started through his death on the cross and his resurrection. Thank God for his faithfulness to preserve his church through the centuries so his good news was passed down to us. Thank God for coming to you. Remember the place you were in your life when you recognized him, confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, received the free gift of eternal life by faith, and began your journey of following Him. Give thanks to God for his sustaining work in your life so far.
Ask God how you can participate with his Kingdom in the present. Christ’s joy can be appropriated to us as we join him in his work – bringing God’s Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. Ask him to show you how he is working in you, through you, and around you. Ask him to help you increase your participation with him in his Kingdom. Ask him to show you what weeds and thorns have choked out his work in your life.
Look forward with hope. Ask God to show you in faith a vision of your future life with him. Not just a future here on earth where you are flourishing according to his will for your life, but a future with him in the new heavens and new earth.
Week 4 – Sunday, December 22nd
“This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” 1 John 4:10
The last week of Advent calls us to experience the Love of Christ. Hopefully, you’ve already begun experiencing love this Christmas season – the love that comes from family and friends as we tell each other how much it means to us that we live in such a community of people who are devoted to each other and the good of all. Isn’t that why we do all the get-togethers and parties and presents? To express our feelings to those we love in concrete ways?
But according to Dallas Willard, there is a different measure of love and Christian maturity: “The main test for Christlike character is whether one spontaneously responds to one’s enemies with love.” So while we should certainly soak in all the love from our loved ones, how do we show love to our enemies this Christmas? Well, we can begin by observing that Christ’s first advent was one of enemy-love. If we are ever wondering how far we should go in loving our enemies, Jesus gives us a very uncomfortable and concrete answer: “all the way.”
May we experience the love of Jesus, the kind of love that is not dependent on our ability to be worthy of his love. And then let us show that kind of love to all those around us.
Reading and Learning
READ: Luke 2:1-20
READ: Psalm 103
READ: Jeremiah 31:1-6
READ: Matthew 18:21-35
READ: Romans 5:6-11
WATCH: The Bible Project on Love
Music
LISTEN: “Love Came Down at Christmas”
LISTEN: “Noel” by Lauren Daigle
LISTEN: “Unto Us” by Paul Zach
LISTEN: “O Holy Night” by Josh Garrels
Practice
Find a quiet place and come to quiet in your mind and your heart. Remove distractions. Use a paper journal to write down your experiences during this practice.
In prayer, enter a conversation with God about anything inside of you or outside of you that is in opposition to his peace.
- Reflect on how God pursued you before you made the decision to follow him. What evidence do you see in your own life that “while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you?”
- Ask God for guidance on how best you can love your family and friends this Christmas season.
- Are you having a hard time loving someone? Ask God to show you how you have been forgiven for something similar to what they have done to you. Ask for the strength to forgive.
- Meditate on the following phrase: “Jesus, thank you for loving me when I didn’t deserve your love.“