Advent: Day Twenty-one

OK, I'm so tired after doing way too much today, but I'm only five days away from completing this little project, so I can do it! :-)

Actually, I got fresh motivation tonight after Daniel and I read the devotion together. Today's ornament is a brick wall, symbolizing wall of Jerusalem that was rebuilt when the people of Isreal returned to their land from exile. The last paragraph from the book says,

"After the prophecy found in Malachi 3:1, there was silence from
the prophets for 400 years. The people waited for the Messenger of the New
Covenant to come. This is also quoted in Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 1:76,
7:27. This prophecy was fulfilled in John the Baptist as the herald of Christ's
first coming." (p. 80)

I had to ask Daniel to reread that last sentence because my brain was working in slow-mo, but once he did, I was once-again amazed at God's timing. Just today at our church, the pastor preached about John the Baptist and how he was born with the purpose of preparing the way for Jesus. Scott encouraged us to look at John's life as an example of one who had "the expulsive power of a new affection for Christ." John the Baptist knew that he had to decrease and that Christ would increase. God had let John the Baptist see that Jesus was the Messiah. John the Baptist found joy in telling others that a greater one than he was coming: Jesus Christ.

I'm so thankful to God for giving us not one, but two lessons about John the Baptist today, and for the reminder that when we humble ourselves before Him, He will give us mercy, which generates love, which generates self-forgetfulness.