Advent Devotions

This Advent Season I am enjoying reading this advent calendar with my children.

This calendar is filled with things that you can do everyday.

Right now we are working on a Jesse Tree.

We are reading each days devotional which includes reading a bible passage.

Then either coloring or decorating an ornament.

Then haging that ornament on a tree.

This is making Advent memorable for the kids and us.

The second calendar I am working on daily myself.

The calendar is filled with lots of great things to do like:

Let your Bible fall open and

contemplate the reading the Holy Spirit has put before you,

Include in your Christmas cards blessings you have received,

Pick one habit that is keeping you from holiness and resolve and conquer it.

(you can click on he calendars to enlarge)

I am also reading a couple other daily Advent Devotional books.

I'd like to share today's devotion with you.

Thursday - First Week of Advent

Jesus said, "Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. The reain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse. It had been set soldidly on rock.

(Matthew 7:21, 24-27)

Jesus says that if we take to heart his words and make them the basis of our actions, our lives are built on a rock-solid foundation.

This raises some questions. First ,have I built a set of convictions that I try to live by? (These would be comparable to the house in the parable above. ) Or, do I more or less operate on a vague deisre to do right?

If I do have convictions, then another question is this: What are they based on? The rock of God's word? Or the shifting sands of what seems generally acceptable in our society?

When the rain and floods and winds come into my life- and they do- I need solid footings. As a disciple of the Lord, I commit myself to more than following the Gospel whenever possible and or convenient.

Just for starters....Do I forgive when I feel like it, or do I have conviction based on the "solid rock" of what Jesus taught about forgiveness? Or prayer. Do I pray "when I get a chance," or do I have a rock-solid pattern of prayer ?

I need to spend some time taking stock of the foundations on which I have built my life.

Spend some quiet time with the Lord.

Does anyone else have any other suggestions

or devotional readings that your do throughout December?

Please feel free to share what you do.