6 December 2023
If there is a time that people consecrated to God love to spend in
devotion, it is certainly the time of the holy festivals on which the Christian
Church contemplates the mercies of God. True, many who are Christian only in
name spend the holy festival seasons partly in high living and luxury, partly
in pride and in parading new clothes, partly in idleness and unbecoming talk.
Because of this, they do not take the love and grace of the Most High to heart.
But believing children of God have an altogether different mind. For they hail
with joy each coming festival season because in their devotions they are going
to place before their mind the gift that the goodness of God has given them.
During the holy season of
Advent, they meditate on the love of their heavenly Father, who spared not His
only Son but sent Him into the world to suffer and die, and thus acquire
salvation for all people. They consider the ardent love of Jesus, who was
clothed with our flesh and blood in order that He might bring us to heaven and
give us unending happiness. They give praise for the grace of the Holy Spirit,
who has placed the gifts lavished on our human race before the souls of
believers, who has made them their own, and who causes them to recognize these
gifts in such a vivid and effectual manner that they seem to have been given
this very day. Accordingly, they make this holy season a time of devotion and
prayer, and begin and end it with hearing and meditating on the Word of God,
with singing festival hymns, and with a quiet and godly way of living.
Johan Starck
No comments:
Post a Comment