We want to share with you a preview of A Better Than Anything Christmas, a new Advent devotional for families from Barbara Reaoch. As you read together, your family will get more excited about Jesus than anything else Christmas has to offer. The following extract is a devotion for the first day in December.
Advent devotional written by Barbara Reaoch that helps your family get more excited about Jesus than anything else.
Explore
Read Luke 1 v 26-33
What promises from God did the angel give Mary? (verses 31-33)
Explain
At Christmas, we want all our dreams to come true. We hope everyone keeps their promises. But even our best friends can’t always keep their promises. It hurts when a promise is broken. God is not like that. Nothing will stop God from keeping his promises. Jesus came to give us something better than a best friend’s promise.
Mary had questions. How could she be a mother? Why would God choose a poor girl to be the mother of God’s Son? The angel told Mary, “No word from God will ever fail” (Luke 1 v 37). Whatever God promises will happen. We do not have to see it before we believe God.
God kept his promise to Mary. Mary’s baby Jesus is the Word from God that never fails. Jesus makes all God’s promises real to us. Through Jesus’s life, death on the cross, and resurrection to newness of life, we know that God alone has all power to keep all his promises. The Bible tells us that “no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Corinthians 1 v 20). Christmas says that Jesus came so that all of God’s good promises come true.
Engage
How do we know that God always keeps his promises?
What do God’s promises mean for your life?
Where do we find God’s promises?
Enter In
Father God, you are always true to your word. Thank you for sending Jesus. We know that you alone have all power to keep all your promises. Help us to know you and love you more this Christmas and always. Amen.
At the end of each day, there is some journaling space provided for each family member to write or draw their own response to what God has shown them. To find out more about A Better Than Anything Christmas and to get your copy, click here.
Barbara Reaoch was Bible Study Fellowship’s Director of the Children’s Division for many years. She is the author of A Jesus Christmas, Why Christmas? and Why Easter? She loves God, her husband, their family… and writing gospel-centered children’s materials.