Nancy Guthrie - Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: Daily Family Devotions for Advent

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Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: Daily Family Devotions for Advent

Copyright 2010 by Nancy Guthrie. All rights reserved.

Some content has been adapted from One Year of Dinner Table Devotions and Discussion Starters , published in 2008 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., under ISBN 978-1-4143-1895-0.

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Interior snowflake illustrations copyright by Suk Ying Wong/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

Cover designed by Jennifer Ghionzoli

Interior designed by Ron Kaufmann

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible , English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the original edition as follows:

Guthrie, Nancy.

Let every heart prepare Him room : daily family devotions for Advent / Nancy Guthrie.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4143-3909-2 (hc)

1. AdventPrayers and devotions. 2. FamiliesPrayers and devotions. I. Title.

BV40.G88 2010

242'.2dc22 2010020828

Repackage first published in 2011 under ISBN 978-1-4143-6441-4

Build: 2022-10-05 09:12:49 EPUB 3.0

Introduction

As December dawns, most families are busy putting Christmas programs and parties on the calendar, making holiday travel plans, and purchasing Christmas gifts. Those are all wonderful things, but if your family is anything like mine, these good things can squeeze out the best thingnurturing a longing in our hearts and our homes for a fresh sense of wonder that God has come to us in Jesus. If we do not set aside time to focus together on what Gods Word tells us about the promise of Christ, on Christmas morning we can find ourselves surrounded by mounds of torn gift wrap, our laps full of presents, but with hearts that are empty and unprepared.

As you enter into December this year, I hope you and your family will gather at some point each day to read this book and turn your focus to Gods promise of a Savior. Youll be reminded of how Gods people longed for centuries for the Messiah to come, and youll read the Gospel accounts of the Messiahs coming. By setting aside this time, youll turn away from this worlds materialistic frenzy and toward a truly sacred celebration of Christs coming.

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room provides a short reading for every day in the month of December, taking your family on a journey of identifying with the distant longings of Israel, listening for the angels announcement, and gazing at the Baby in the manger. Youll find several suggested discussion questions that will help to transform this time into a meaningful discussion in which everybody in the family can participate. Each days questions begin with a question that even the youngest member of the family can likely answer. There are additional Scriptures you might want to read as part of your discussion and Christmas songs your family can talk through and then sing together. Several lined pages have been spaced throughout the book where you can jot down dated notes of comments made and questions asked by various family members that you want to remember as the years go by.

The busyness of December can easily crowd out contemplation of the amazing reality of Gods coming to live among us as one of us. I hope that your family will overcome the empty busyness of this season and that in your home, every heart will prepare room for Jesus.

Nancy Guthrie

When someone promises us something wonderful, we can hardly wait for that promise to be fulfilled. If the promise is something good, we want it now ! We really dont like to wait. And yet the very best things are worth waiting for.

A long, long time ago, God made a promise to his people, Israel. In fact, he made many promises to them. But Gods most important promisethe promise all his other promises depended onwas that he would send the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would save them from the difficulties of living life in this world broken by sin. The Messiah would not be an ordinary person, but Gods own Son. The people he made the promise to had to wait, putting all their faith in the One who made the promise.

The season leading up to Christmas is called Advent, which means coming . During Advent, we remember the thousands of years Gods chosen people anticipated and longed for the coming of Gods salvation through the Messiah. Then, at Christmas, we celebrate the fulfillment of the promises God made. Jesusthe Savior God had promisedwas born to us. No more waiting. Jesus came.

When John the Baptist was born, his father, Zechariah, recognized that the long years of waiting were finally over. God gave him a special understanding that his son, John, was going to prepare the way for the promised Messiah. Zechariah celebrated that God was about to fulfill his promise. He said, Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago (Luke 1:68-70).

God promised that he would send a Savior, which he did when Jesus became a human baby. And while Jesus did everything necessary to save us when he came the first time, he also promised to come again. Then all Gods promises will be completely fulfilled. So again we are waiting. Waiting patiently for God to fulfill his promises is what it means to have faith.

Putting faith in Gods promises is not something a person does only one time on the day he or she becomes a Christian. The essence of being a Christian is placing all our hope in God, knowing we can trust him to fulfill all his promiseseven the ones that havent been fulfilled yet. We are willing to wait, trusting that Gods way is perfect. All the L ORD s promises prove true (Psalm 18:30).

Prayer

Like your people of old, we are waiting for you, God, to fulfill all your promises. And because we remember how you fulfilled your promise to send Jesus, we know that you will fulfill all your promises to us.

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Discussion Starters