Committing Advent

Having just finished (last week) writing a series of devotionals on temptation, I had the distinct sense of missing something.  It hit me like a falling brick this morning; what I’d forgotten was the positive side of temptation.  Huh?

It works like C.S. Lewis’ well-known explanation of Matthew 5:27 where Jesus had taught on lust and adultery; Lewis wrote:

If you see the ham and eggs you have not sinned, but if you linger over them, you have committed breakfast in your heart.

The positive note in this is that it works with good things as well as the bad. 

I have a habit of “committing Advent” in my heart.  When the calendar turns to Fall, and I’m looking ahead to the season of Advent (in 2013 – the four Sundays of December), my head is always turned towards preparing my heart for Jesus’ coming.  I “commit” Advent…preparing the way of the Lord.

It is with this in mind, and the terribly unsettling world conditions we see constantly in the news reports, that I have chosen to preach sermons on the Second Advent – the “second coming” of our Lord during October and through Advent.

This series will include a lot of Revelation and the Gospel of Matthew (especially chapters 24, 25 – see the calendar for sermon topics and Scripture.). 

The series will be called “Occupy Till I Come” and is based on one of Jesus’ parables about how to be faithful in the times with what God has given. 

So…come, let’s commit Advent together (and bring a friend too!).