Advent Study – DAY 1

Your IMAGE

is Like Your Father’s

 

Celebrating HOPE! 

Jesus is Born to be the Messiah:  A proud parent is a sight to behold.  For loving parents, the newborn is beautiful and full of hope for the future.  Imagine your heavenly Father’s joy when Jesus was born.  He sent prophets to announce his birth and angels to trumpet his arrival.  God sent his son to earth with a special message of HOPE.  In this Advent study we will look at Christmas through the “eyes of HOPE”. 

 

Jesus is Born to be our HOPE:  Imagine your heavenly Father’s joy when you were born.  Our Creator desires a vibrant and satisfying relationship with each soul he has created – that includes you!  In this study we will hear about HOPE from Jesus’ own words.  What was so important to him that you hear personally?  You will be challenged to face brutal TRUTH and experience genuine HOPE that can only come by following Him.  Christmas brings us Jesus’ “LIGHT of HOPE” – for this life and forever.  What was Jesus’ Good News Message? – could it be that your “HOPE is NOW”?

 

Jesus’ “Message” of HOPE:  

• “Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, ‘I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.’” John 8:12 NLT

 

The HOPE of Creation:  

On the bottom of the Advent Card, it shows that from the beginning God created each soul with a desire to know them.  Following the green pathway to the top, it shows that His HOPE to know you is both “NOW” and “Forever”.  He desires that each soul He creates become a part of his heavenly “Forever Family”.  Our heavenly Father actually wants a personal and intimate relationship with each and every individual born – and that means you, too!  Read Genesis 1:1-5; 26-28, John 1:1-3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16-17, and Hebrews 1:2 (noted below).  You have your Father’s IMAGE!

 

HOPE Spoiled:  

The Good News is that whenever God’s creation got in trouble, He always provided a way of HOPE back to Him.  He finally made a personal visit to us at Christmas to show us a new way of HOPE for which we were created.  God understands our struggle with sin, because we were made like him – full of creativity and independent self-will. We have his IMAGE in us.  He gave us the power to choose.  You can see it in every child.  As a loving God, however, He never wanted us to be separated from Himself.  He wanted us to choose “light”, not “darkness”.  The Father’s message, sent through His son, Jesus, is very important, as we will see in His H.O.P.E. Formula.

The bad news is that people have never done very well in maintaining a relationship with their Holy Creator.  In the past, Adam and Eve disobeyed in the garden, and that resulted in both spiritual and physical death.  Evil became so widespread that God ended the life of all those living but Noah’s family in a great flood.  He gave us a chance to start over.  That HOPE was soon squandered.  When people began to think they knew more that God, they gathered to build a tower at Babel to reach heaven and rule as gods separate from Him.  HOPING for them to know Him again, God chose to divide them by languages, and that helped for a while.  He also gave them the laws of Moses and then chose a special people to show the way of HOPE.  Generations ignored the messages of the prophets, priests, and kings God sent.  Rebellious children are always difficult to reach.  It was time for a final intervention – CHRISTMAS!  Jesus came as a Savior to give us HOPE anew.  He came to show us the way to join his family on earth – the Kingdom of God within us.  He also came to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins, offering us his Grace and a promise to escape judgment and be resurrected at our death into his Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus, the only human ever sinless, gave his life so we might rejoin our Creator forever.   A relationship with our heavenly Father is possible through his righteousness and Grace!

 

HOPE Regained: 

ADVENT CARD

Your Advent Card will take you on a journey of H.O.P.E., inviting you to establish and follow the “green line of relationship” from your birth to your physical death and then to your spiritual resurrection.  Jesus’ Messages will show you how to stay connected with the Father and escape judgment and separation.  He will show you the only way to satisfy the Father’s requirement for perfection.    This study will focus on the Words and Messages of Jesus that he came all the way to earth to share!  He came to give us “light” for our journey and “freedom” from the world’s darkness.  Each “TRUTH of HOPE” is a “light” on the Advent tree.

• Genesis 1:1-5 NLT “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night.’  And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.”
• Genesis 26-28 NLT “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.’” 
• John 1:1-3 NLT “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God.  God created everything through him [Jesus], and nothing was created except through him.” 
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 NLT “But for us, there is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live.”
• Colossians 1:16-17 NLT “… for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see — such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” 
• Hebrews 1:2 NLT “And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.”
• [Emphases Mine]

 

 

 

 

 

Joy to the World

Go Fish

 

He’s Got The

Whole World In His Hands

Bible Songs for Kids

 

 

 

 

I Still Believe in Christmas

Anne Wilson

 

Joy to the World

Caleb + Kelsey

 "Joy To The World (The Savior Is Here)"