This week, our time together will focus on the promises of Jesus and how they provide us with enduring hope, unshakable security, and a peace that passes all understanding. We start our exploration of these promises with an invitation from Jesus to rest; which is ironic on a Monday, at the beginning of a work week, smack dab in the middle of the holiday season.

Jesus' return is not an interruption to our wants but is their fulfillment. His return is the final disarming of evil - those little glimpses of God's goodness we see now replaced with the complete picture of His love and redemption. We will experience wholeness and completeness - all that is broken is finally redeemed. The call of Advent is this: Jesus is purifying Himself a people zealous for the redemptive work in the world. What would it look like if we were the kind of people who live with passion for what Jesus wants in every sphere and every moment we are entrusted with?

We devoted our time this week to meditating on the prayers of Jesus and the insight they provide on His character, focus, and nature. Each prayer has been powerful in its own way, but today's prayer uttered by Jesus while enduring the unbearable pain of the cross is where our hope resides - His forgiveness.

Moments before Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and eventually crucified, we see, in John 17, Jesus doing something He rarely did - praying for Himself. He's not teaching the disciples how to pray or praying about the concerns and circumstances of others; Jesus recognizes the impending crisis and chaos coming His way and that leads Him to seek out God's presence and strength. These recorded words give us a unique behind-the-scenes glimpse of the Son praying to His Father in a time of need.

This week's time centers on the prayers of Jesus and how they provide insight into Jesus' mindset, nature, and heart. Through it all, we see that the impending cross was in the background of each prayer, standing in the shadows of His life and ministry. Nevertheless, Jesus knew what awaited Him, and in today's passage, we see Jesus' troubled soul meeting a willing spirit.

Jesus understood how simple, yet at the same time incredibly complicated, our connections with others can be. Nevertheless, the oneness of believers was such a priority to Jesus that it served as the topic of His most extended prayer, and it's this prayer we want to meditate on today.

This week, our time together will focus on the prayers of Jesus and how they give us profound insight into the things that occupied His mind and burdened His heart. They reveal what matters most to Him. Prayers put to words the emotions, thoughts, and concerns rumbling deep in our souls.

The chaos we see and experience in the world is the trajectory of sin and brokenness. It speaks to our propensity to divide, blame, and separate to preserve our way. We emphasize borders to keep others out and leave ourselves isolated and insulated to ensure our comfort and security. But we need each other. Redemption resides when we enter in and participate with God together as a family - seeing our collective role in the world. We must pay attention to how we handle our influence and consider how the world responds to our activity. When we bear witness to the way of Jesus to the world, we leverage a force that ushers in the redemption we long for and that which God intends.

This week, our time has centered on why Jesus entered humanity; through it all, we've seen it was ultimately for His glory and our good. We'll touch upon this today as we consider the life-changing liberation an encounter with His love brings.

For many of us, we define the holiday season as one of the few times that we see the family and friends that we care about. The weeks, months, and sometimes years of separation can make reconnection that much more special. On the other hand, when reconnection doesn’t happen, whether due to distance,  loss, or circumstance,  it can be  heartbreaking. The weight of grief and the sense of separation diminishes our spirit. Today, as we look to the life of Christ, we will consider the pains of a different separation and the lengths God will go to seek and save the lost, and then, celebrate in their reconciliation