Today we begin the Christian year. It is the first Sunday in the Advent season and as we enter into this new year, our hearts are moved with anticipation of what the coming year will hold of the blessings of our Lord. But let us not rush through this Advent season - it will pass soon enough. Let us take time to reflect upon Advent and its meaning and allow the Lord time and space to bring these lessons home to us. Advent is primarily the season of anticipation of the celebration of the birth of Christ. But how are we to anticipate this celebration? Advent is really a complex event. Throughout the Church and throughout history, Advent has been a time, not only of listening to the joy of the angels and the shepherds and the wise men, but of listening to the call of John the Baptist to make ready the way of the Lord with repentance, and the cry of the Spirit and the Bride in Revelation, saying, “Come, Lord Jesus,” for we, like those Jewish believers who awaited the first coming o

This cup is the new covenant . Luke xxii.20 Before Thy Table, Lord, I kneel And clasp the cup of holy wine - The great New Covenant's royal seal, Authentic, visible, divine. Thy two-fold grant, it all is here, The death-bought peace, the cleansing power; Sure is Thy seal, my title clear; I claim the whole this blissful hour. H.C.G.M. Image: Thanks to Sarah Harford of Ridley Hall, Facebook Group - lovely shot!

In the Epistle today (Jer. 23:5f), Jeremiah spoke of wonderful spiritual blessings that God would bring His people in “the days to come.” Jeremiah surely delighted in the prospect of these blessings, but he never saw them. Indeed, he knew he would not see them for he knew that seventy years were appointed for his people to be under God’s judgment in Babylon. In the years that followed Jeremiah’s prophecy, Daniel knew the days that Jeremiah had foreseen were approaching and prays for the Lord to fulfill his promises. The angel Gabriel, in reply to Daniel, told him that the spiritual aspect of the prophecy of Jeremiah, the coming of the Branch, the King, the Messiah, would not be fulfilled for seventy times seven years - hundreds of years later. By the time of Jesus, the Jews had been waiting for Jeremiah’s prophecies regarding the Messiah to be fulfilled for almost six hundred years. Why does God sometimes wait so long to do the things we wish He would do? Oswald Chambers, when writing

In case you are interested. Numbered in accord with the 1562 edition, which only had 38 Articles: XXXIX. The Resurrection of the Dead is not past already . The Resurrection of the Dead is not past already, as if it belonged only to the Soul, which by the Grace of Christ is raised from the Death of Sin, but is to be expected by all Men in the last Day: for at that time (as the Scripture doth most apparently testify) the Dead shall be restored to their own Bodies, Flesh and Bones, to the end that Man, according as either righteously or wickedly he hath passed this Life, may, according to his Works, receive Rewards or Punishments. XL. The Souls of Men deceased, do neither perish with their Bodies . They who maintain that the Souls of Men deceased, do either sleep, without any manner of sense, to the Day of Judgment, or affirm that they die together with the Body, and shall be raised therewith at the last Day, do wholly differ from the Right Faith, and Orthodox Belief, which is delivered

For which reason I remind thee to fan into flame the grace-gift of God which is in thee through the layong-on of my hands.... (2 Tim. 1:6; HCGM) "St. Paul is writing to a man of the gentlest and most sensitive spirit, one to whom at the best of times difficult duty was a formidable load, and who was now about to suffer a deep bereavement, to face a hostile world alone, and to try to do his pastoral duty still. Timothy would be tremendously tempted to yield to the 'cowardice' which fails and sinks in prospect of the evil hour.... "What should he do? where in his bewilderment should he turn for courage, and for the power to labour on? The Apostle takes a method perfectly practical; he directs him to a concrete fact, an event not only of his inner but of his outward life; he reminds him of the laying of his hands on Timothy's head and of the spiritual import and issue of that act. We cannot reasonably doubt the exact reference here; it is to Timothy's Ordinatio

Actually, some of these posts are just poetry - not hymns - but here we go. He that is joined unto the Lord . I Corinthians vi.17 Dear is Thy presence with Thy friends To faith's glad eyes reveal'd - Their sun when sorrow's night descends In battle's hour their shield. But oh, when inmost spirits faint, 'Tis life to clasp the Word That tells of Thee with every saint For ever one, dear Lord. Companions may converse and go; But what shall now divide Members and Head, above, below - The Bridegroom and the Bride? H.C.G.M.

Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net . Psalm xxv.15. A voice, a call from glory, cries "Watch, Christian, watch, at eve, at morn, Lest open violence, or surprise, Defeat thy soul forlorn." My Saviour, Master, it is Thou! Thy voice awakes me to the strife! Yes, let me watch - each passing now, Each conscious pulse of life. Yet how can this unready will At once, at every point, repel The heart's own traitors, aided still By energies of hell? A sinner's watch against his sin I keep, with weary sighs, in vain; In vain on evil deep within This aching gaze I strain. But now a better hope is mine; Jesus, 'tis Thou, my life, my own; Bid through the Word Thy Spirit shine, And show Thyself alone. To see the glory of Thy Name, Eternal Son for sinners given; To embrace Thy cross for aye the same, Thy gift of peace, of heaven; To welcome Thy great light at length, Thy love unknown to trust, to know - This brings a tenderness, a stren