25 Days of AdventSample

Advent -- Day 6

Deuteronomy 17:14-15, 18-20

When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. [He should] not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign for a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Micah 5:2-4

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small…out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times. Therefore, Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return…. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach the ends of the earth.

Revelation 19:11-16

I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice, he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Meditation

Jesus’ greatness now reaches to the ends of the earth. And those who know Him recognize Him as faithful and true, one who has not taken His position by force (like so many earthly kings have), but who was chosen from before the beginning of time. Starting that day in Israel, the king first came, as a baby, born into the line of Jewish nobility (because it was from among the Israelites that God had decreed a king would come), and yet from a long line of sinful people, so that he could identify with us, and so that we would choose him, too. This was the first time He came, not with force, but with the gentleness of an infant.

But the second time will be different. The second time, it will be sudden, and no one will miss it. Almighty God will open the gate of heaven, and Jesus will burst forth as a king, riding triumphant on a white stallion (not a donkey this time) with the armies of heaven following. Our great conquering king will destroy his enemies once and for all, waging and winning a holy war, and ruling over all his people. Then he will reveal to a world that has rejected him that he truly is KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. He will be absolutely sovereign over all people, the lost and the saved, and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that he is who we accept and claim that he is, Jesus Christ, Lord.

Prayer

Faithful Father, thank you for the glorious hope of the second coming of Jesus Christ in glory and power. Thank you that when he comes, all his people will be caught up to meet him, and in that moment, finally make like him. Help me to live in the anticipation of his coming. In the meantime, please help me to trust you in the things I cannot understand. And when life seems to be a mess, help me to remember that your work here on earth remains, for the time being, an unfinished project, and that you always complete what you begin. Help me to cultivate an eternal perspective as I journey through this temporal arena. May I learn to pursue the eternal reality of the unseen future over the current reality of the visible present. And may you be the object of my deepest love so that I will pursue you above all else. In Christ’s name. Amen.