For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard...

You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
—Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ. Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him. -Oswald Chambers image

He has come! the Christ of God...

He has come! the Christ of God;

Left for us His glad abode;

Stooping from His throne of bliss,

To this darksome wilderness.
 

He has come! the Prince of Peace;—

Come to bid our sorrows cease;

Come to scatter, with His light,

All the darkness of our night.
 

He, the Mighty King, has come!

Making this poor world His home;

Come to bear our sin’s sad load,—

Son of David, Son of God.
 

He has come whose name of grace

Speaks deliverance to our race;

Left for us His glad abode,—

Son of Mary, Son of God!
 

Unto us a Child is born!

Ne’er has earth beheld a morn

Among all the morns of time,

Half so glorious in its prime.
 

Unto us a Son is given!

He has come from God’s own heaven;

Bringing with Him, from above,

Holy peace and holy love.

... Horatius Bonar image

"Teach Us to Pray"

Bp. Julian Dobbs: Advent teaching Part III

Advent 2015 | Part 3 from Julian Dobbs on Vimeo.

Bp. Julian Dobbs Advent teaching Part II

Advent 2015 | Part 2 from Julian Dobbs on Vimeo.

Christ, whose glory fills the skies!

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,

   Christ the true, the only Light,

Sun of Righteousness, arise!

Triumph o'er the shades of night:

Dayspring from on high, be near;

Daystar, in my heart appear.

 Dark and cheerless is the morn

Unaccompanied by thee;

Joyless is the day's return,

Till thy mercy's beams I see,

Till they inward light impart,

Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

 Visit then this soul of mine!

Pierce the gloom of sin and grief!

Fill me, Radiancy Divine;

Scatter all my unbelief;

More and more thyself display,

Shining to the perfect day.

-Charles Wesley image

"Thy kingdom come!"

"Thy kingdom come!" on bended knee

the passing ages pray;

and faithful souls have yearned to see

on earth that kingdom's day.
 

But the slow watches of the night

not less to God belong;

and for the everlasting right

the silent stars are strong.
 

And lo, already on the hills

the flags of dawn appear;

gird up your loins, ye prophet souls,

proclaim the day is near:
 

The day to whose clear shining light

all wrong shall stand revealed,

when justice shall be throned in might,

and every heart be healed;
 

When knowledge, hand in hand with peace,

shall walk the earth abroad;

the day of perfect righteousness,

the promised day of God.

-Frederick Lucian Hosmer image

Is the humanity of our time still waiting for a Savior?

The question is: Is the humanity of our time still waiting for a Savior? One has the feeling that many consider God as foreign to their own interests. Apparently, they do not need him. They live as though he did not exist and, worse still, as though he were an “obstacle” to remove in order to fulfill themselves. Even among believers—we are sure of it—some let themselves be attracted by enticing dreams and distracted by misleading doctrines that suggest deceptive shortcuts to happiness. Yet, despite its contradictions, worries and tragedies, and perhaps precisely because of them, humanity today seeks a path of renewal, of salvation, it seeks a Savior and awaits, sometimes unconsciously, the coming of the Savior who renews the world and our life, the coming of Christ, the one true Redeemer of man and of the whole of man.
...Pope Benedict XVI image

Bp. Julian Dobbs Advent teaching Part I

Advent 2015 | Part 1 from Julian Dobbs on Vimeo.