What I’m listening to: The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole

Welcome to Day 8 of our Advent series! If you’re up to date, awesome, if not, be sure to check out the previous posts. The first one explains a little more about the series. Now, let’s go back to where we last left off in Matthew. 

 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”) 

                  Matthew 1:22-23 (NIV)

It’s easy to overlook the small verses, but it’s often the small verses that offer us the most hope. For the last two days we’ve been talking about the first two of the four gifts that God gives us. On the first day we talked about the gift of love; yesterday we talked about the gift of faith. Today we are going to be discussing the third gift: the gift of hope. This verse might seem like its reiterating what we already know, that Jesus is the Son of God, but it’s also saying something else. God keeps his promises. We can have the gift of hope because He does. We can have hope in the prophecies in the Bible because we have already seen many of them fufilled. It may not always be easy, but feeding our hope will always be worth it. 

Prayer Prompt: It can be easy to feel hopeless, especially during the holidays. Ask God what you can do to help Him this Christmas season.