This week we begin our Advent series, Between Two Worlds, by stepping into Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 1:1–9. Advent is a season of waiting for Jesus’ arrival. We look back to His birth in Bethlehem and look ahead to His final return. But Paul reminds us we don’t wait empty-handed. God has already poured out every gift we need in Jesus. He sustains us. He equips us. And He sends us into the world to reflect His light.

Join us as we explore what it means to wait with purpose and to use the gifts God has placed in each of us for the good of His Kingdom.

• Isaiah 2:1–5
• 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
• Matthew 21:1–11

Have you ever been desperate? Desperate not from someone else’s doing, but because of your own. This is Samson in Judges Chapter 16. His unnatural strength from God led to a life of getting what he wanted, when he wanted it. Ultimately, Samson’s wanting of women that were not his wife led to his desperate situation. Which brings us back to our own desperation stories. Stories of desperation that lead us back to God - back to God to be restored in body and soul. Even in our sin, in our own mistakes, God will not leave us forsake us. His Spirit remains in us to help us in our weakness. “He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Intercedes and restores us with grace won for us on the cross. Yes, we too are too cry out to the Lord in our weakness and He will make us whole again.

• Judges 16:4-9; 15-22; 28-30

This week we see how gratitude isn’t just for the good days. In Philippians 1, Paul writes with joy and thanksgiving, not from comfort, but from prison. He shows us that joy isn’t about how life is going for us, but about how the Gospel keeps moving forward through us.

We see that when we look through the eyes of the Spirit, even hardship becomes a place where Jesus is at work.

• Genesis 50:15-21
• Philippians 1:3-19
• Matthew 5:1-16

• Genesis 2:5-7
• Acts 17:22-31
• John 20:19-23

All Saints Day. It can tug at your heart in a variety of ways. Our senses can quickly bring us back to one of our loved ones can’t they? It could be a smell, something we see, something we smell or something or something we hear and we instantly have a loved one in our minds and also in our hearts.

All Saints Day is a time to remember them fondly, but it isn’t always easy. There is most certainly or was most certainly crying involved. Now there is waiting involved, waiting for Jesus to return on the Last Day, and there is hoping involved. Hope in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to restore all things including our loved ones to a new paradise where they(we) will walk in newness of life forever.

Crying, Waiting and Hoping - What a process He has given us. Thanks be to God.

• Psalm 130
• 1 John 3:1-3
• Matthew 5:1-12

If you’ve ever had heart burn, you know it isn’t a burning that feels good. “Plop, plop, fiz, fiz. Oh what a relief it is. ” Or at least we hope.

The heart burn that the two of the disciples felt as Jesus walked with them on the day he was resurrected was not a burning that needed relief. It was a burning from being in the presence of Jesus, the Word of God himself.

Being in the presence of the Light of the World will do that to a person. But He is still present in many ways. That burning wasn’t reserved just for the disciples. As we are in the Word and the Word is in us, indeed that burning feeling the disciples had while Jesus revealed the scriptures to them isn’t going anywhere. It is here to stay.

• Revelation 14:6-7
• Romans 3:21-28
• Luke 24:13-35

• Psalm 119:105-112
• 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
• Matthew 4:18-22

In this story from Exodus 34, Israel is encamped at Mount Sinai while Moses has gone up the mountain to spend time with God. This is the time when Moses delivers to Israel the Ten Commandments, written by the finger of God. In this encounter with God, Moses receives more than the Law from God. When he comes down from Mount Sinai, his face is shining. The Hebrew word translated “shone” (qaran) can mean a radiance that beams out like sun rays. This is not a soft glow Moses generates. He is literally shining so brightly that it’s like beams of light are proceeding from his face.

Ultimately, and somewhat unbelievably, Christians too are called to reflect God’s glory to the world. Paul alludes to this in 2 Corinthians 3:18, where believers are described as being transformed “from one degree of glory to another.” This reference to Moses’s shining face reminds all believers that this spiritual transformation begins with time spent in the presence of God. And it leads to people being so completely transformed that it’s like they’re illuminated.

Are you illuminated by being transformed by Christ’s love for you?

Is it obvious that Christ is in you?

How do we go about going from one degree of glory to another?

• Exodus 34:29-35
• II Corinthians 3:12-18
• Luke 9:28-36