From the You Version Bible App devotional, “Advent: 25 Days”

Find Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love This Season

How are you feeling this holiday season? Is life like a Christmas movie, full of wonder, happiness, and endless cups of hot cocoa? Or are you feeling stressed out, anxious, or maybe even grieving? The classic Christmas song says it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but for many of us, it can be the most overwhelming time of the year.

We can’t guarantee that reading this Bible Plan will make it snow on Christmas or magically make all your holiday worries disappear, but it is designed to help you find hope, peace, joy, and love this season.

What Is Advent?

Advent is a Christian tradition of anticipating Jesus’ birth on Christmas. Each week of Advent focuses on one word that reveals how Jesus’ birth changes us. The four words which you’ve seen already are hope, peace, joy, and love.

Now, let’s pause because if you’ve been to church, read the Bible, or spent any time around Christians, then you’ve probably heard these words a lot. And maybe these words feel a bit vague. That’s why we’ve defined these words below.

• Hope: A wholehearted, evidence-based conviction that God is making the future better than the past or present
• Peace: A state of wholeness, calm, and renewal between us, God, and others
• Joy: A resilient cheerfulness anchored in the goodness of God
• Love: Following Jesus’ example by treating everyone as valuable and worthy of sacrificial care

Over the next few weeks, we will explore the Bible and see how God’s gift to us provides hope, peace, joy, and love. We’ll also see how these gifts impact how we live every day.

So whether you’ve practiced Advent for years or you’re just learning about this tradition, we can all find hope, peace, joy, and love this season. Tomorrow, we’ll begin our first week by taking a closer look at God’s plan for hope.

Pause and Pray:

Lord, thank You for the great gift of Your Son. Please help me focus on You this Christmas season. Free my life from distractions and give me Your hope, peace, joy, and love. In Jesus’ name, amen.

My Thoughts

I researched a little bit and found out that Advent comes from that Latin word “adventus” which means arrival. Arrival of what? At Christmas, we celebrate the arrival of Jesus on the earth, the only One who can reconcile us to the Father and who teaches us about what true hope, peace, joy and love are.

I just returned from a trip to Maryland and got to witness just a little. I shared with my young grandchildren about our tradition of baking a birthday cake for Jesus. We have been doing that since our children were very young. I told them that Christmas isn’t about the tree and presents but it’s all about Jesus. One of the kids was amazed while the toddler was bored and the oldest wandered away. But I least I got to share about the real meaning of Christmas and hope that it stays with them in some way for a long time. It breaks my heart that the only meaning some people have for Christmas is a wish list and a visit to Santa. The real meaning is lost in the commercialism of the season that the retailers have hyped so much that Jesus seems lost in the commercials for the newest gadgets, toys and must-haves before anyone else has things. I don’t think Jesus minds our enjoying giving, but I am fairly sure that He does not appreciate the greed associated with the “this is what I want for Christmas.” If we have Jesus, we actually have all that we need.

I hope that the first day of Advent is one that you can take time to reflect on the arrival of the One who changed your life forever. That’s my goal for today.