2024 Advent Devotion: Day 16

Monday, December 16

Isaiah 11:1-9; Numbers 16:1-19; Hebrews 13:7-17; Ephesians 2:1-10

During the year, we tend to look forward to enjoying our freedoms and diversity in Christmas holiday traditions. As a child, I can remember spending time with my grandparents on Christmas. Their house would be filled with random acts of love, verbal praises to Jesus Christ, blissful concord, sweet aromas, “The Temptations” Christmas music playing in the background, and lastly the house was filled with a modesty which had become the children and grandchildren’s new skin. Nevertheless, we expected gifts with tags in my grandma’s cursive handwriting to be sitting under the Christmas tree. As I look back on those times, I smile and realize I anticipated something new, gifts I hadn’t earned. I didn’t quite understand piety or the spiritual influence of deeds and faith. All I knew for sure was that I had an invitation to show up, eat, drink, and be merry. And I held no disagreements. I was clueless, in fact, that I was a beneficiary of God’s grace.

In Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians, he reminds us that “we are saved by grace which is a gift from God and not by works, so that no one can boast” (2:9). Simply put, in God’s light, my grandparents were physically demonstrating God’s spiritual actions in them.

In our Christian journey, Paul reminds us to “remember our leaders, who spoke the word of God to us and to consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). “The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms” defines leadership as “a gift that is also given to us by God.” So let us unite in obedience and go as one body in Christ to do God’s good works. For we know that when any functions of the body are malfunctioning those remaining are challenged to distribute and carry a heavier load. Paul says, “for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). In this, let us avoid projecting acts of disapproval like the generations before us (Numbers 16:3).

As we freely receive this Christmas holiday season, celebrating the birth of our King Jesus Christ, let us widen our measure of deeds and faith by encouraging and proclaiming God’s free gift of grace to all those around us. And if we dwell in the sole mind of Christ, let us openly unite and increase, “having confidence in our leaders (parents, grandparents, professors, pastors, and elders) and submitting to their authority, because they keep watch over us as those who must give an account. Doing this so their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to us” (Hebrews 13:17).

This Advent season, let us be known for proclaiming God’s grace to others. Through grace, we become heirs to God’s immeasurable love and to His promises of restoration.

Brandie E. Bruner
School of Divinity Student