When trials and suffering crash into the promises of God we begin to doubt.  We struggle with the Word we’ve received and the hardships we’ve known.  We’ve seen others, friends and family members drift from the faith, and we weep for them and we wonder about ourselves.  There never seems to be any down time, any chance to simply relax to just let it all go and enjoy life.  A sinful world tears at us luring us into the depravity of its ways, our own sinful hearts pull at us calling us to get our own while we can to just take care of ourselves first and foremost. 

The advent that Jeremiah preached was one that would redefine the people of God.  It would actually change them from a people who cried out, “As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,” to a people who could say, “As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.”  That is the coming of the Righteous Branch of David would change them from a people who would only celebrate how God delivered their ancestors to a people who knew of his hand of deliverance in their own day.  Salvation was not just a history lesson it is now an ongoing reality.

Excerpt from “Words of Advent”