Pocket Thoughts - 12/19/25

Special Advent Edition

God * is where our souls find satisfaction * is the same yesterday, today, and forever * is perfect love and faithfulness.

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“There is something so lovely about the joy that children experience at Christmastime. They love to count down the days, make their Christmas lists, and eat their body weight in Christmas cookies. It’s hard to keep that innocence and joy as we get older. When we’ve lived more life, we are acquainted with heartache and disappointment. We worry about paying bills, the health of our loved ones, or what’s going on in our world. Everything seems to be changing so fast that we struggle not to worry. But one thing hasn’t changed. Let me remind you of this truth: God hasn’t changed. His love for you hasn’t changed. His ability to give you the grace to face anything hasn’t changed. His offer of peace hasn’t changed. His greatest gift of all, eternal life, hasn’t changed.” – Sheila Walsh, The Gifts of Christmas

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“Heaven could not be poured into the stained vessel that was the earth. But there was another way: God Himself could make the journey…He had sent prophets many times, but now He would do something far more shocking. He would leave the throne of heaven to walk among them – a King in disguise, the Lord of the universe in human scale, the Creator among His creatures. Then the nature of God would be clear to all. People on earth could see what God was like. They would behold His perfect love and faithfulness, His unbounded devotion even to those who were sick or small or dark hearted. They would know the things that mattered to Him. And in that Incarnation, they would see a perfect model of what life could really and truly be. All of this must happen if God and humanity were ever to be reconciled. So the Lord of the universe invaded this world. He entered our world through a doorway called Bethlehem, and the world was changed forever.” – David Jeremiah, Why the Nativity?

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“The only thing that will satisfy our hunger for more is to hunger for the One Who comes down to Bethlehem, house of Bread, the One Who comes after us and offers Himself as Bread for our starving souls. And for all the wondering, this is the first question of the New Testament, when the wise men come asking, ‘Where is He?’ (Matthew 2:2) We only find out where we are when we find out where He is. We only find ourselves…when we find Him. We lost ourselves at one tree. And only find ourselves at another. Wise men are only wise because they make their priority the seeking of Christ. All our moments, all our waking – all the globe is a looking glass to God, and the wise keep seeking the presence of Christ in a thousand places, because you only come to yourself when you come to Him.” – Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift

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“It was through Jacob’s children that the nation of Israel would come, and it was through Jacob’s children that our Savior, the forever King, would come…Jacob’s story includes deception, family turmoil, and unique experiences with God. He lived both as a deceiver and as one deceived…Thankfully, Jesus came for the Jacobs of the world. Our struggles with sin will not thwart God’s plan. Rather, God’s good plan made a way for us to be forgiven for our sins and to be reconciled to Him. When we read of Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, we might forget the hundreds of years of longing that came before the Son of God was laid in a manger. Advent is not a celebration of God’s last-minute fix for our problem of sin. Rather, during Advent, we celebrate that it was always God’s plan to send Jesus. He chose to do so through a long line of imperfect, sinful people who point us to a perfect, sinless Savior. And because He always keeps His promises, we can look forward to the return of our perfect, sinless Savior Who will come back for us.” – The Daily Grace Co., Waiting for the Savior

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Lord Jesus, this has been another week of contemplating the mind-blowing idea that You – God! – would leave heaven to live here – among the sinful, the soiled, and the selfish. You came to experience what we all suffer – pain, heartbreak, sorrow. But where we respond with bitterness and lash out, You responded with love and reached out. Where others might desert us, You ran toward us. You held us. You supported us. We see our unworthiness. You saw every single face made in Your Father’s image. Unworthy? Not in Your eyes. In Your eyes, we were worth stretching out Your arms on a cross to redeem what the Father valued so highly – the souls of His precious image-bearers. You would pay our ransom and lead the way to eternity by crushing death. What a beautiful season of wonder to reflect on all that You’ve done to bring us home! And our Hero came as a Baby, entrusting Himself to a young couple in Bethlehem centuries ago. Thank You, Jesus. In Your beautiful Name I pray, amen.

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“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” – John 3:16-17