In anticipation of the Lord’s soon return, believers everywhere are called to “wake from sleep.” Because our salvation is nearer to us today than when we first believed, we affirm that the day of Christ’s glorious coming is close at hand, and the night of sin and sadness is on its way out forever. In light of this certain prospect, we are to cast off the works of darkness, putting on God’s armor of light, and to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us make no room for fleshly desire or practice, not gratifying our flesh but seeking to please the Lord in all things. The Lord is coming soon; let us do all we can to live resonant with that belief. The day of our deliverance is near!

Everything we do today should be done in light of our knowing that Christ will soon reveal his salvation to the world. What’s proper for us to do now, with this hope? We should walk consistent with our belief, properly, like those who have nothing to hide or fear, like those who live in the daytime, and not like those who have no hope at all.

Father, give us the power to walk properly as in the daytime, not like those who are living without hope, according to the principles of the world. Give us grace to live as children of the day. For Jesus’s sake, amen.

“Worship is the supreme and only indispensable activity of the Christian Church. It alone will endure, like the love for God which it expresses, into heaven, when all other activities of the Church will have passed away. It must therefore, even more strictly than any of the less essential doings of the Church, come under the criticism and control of the revelation on which the Church is founded. Considering the outpouring of books on worship in recent years, it is obviously a subject of great interest and importance for contemporary Christians. Yet, sadly, worship is an issue that continues to divide us, both across the denominations and within particular congregations.”

~ David G. Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992. p. 15.

Let God Arise! Seasonal Focus
Emmanuel, God with Us, Matthew 1.18-25

Book Reading
Peterson, Engaging with God