An Advent Prayer for Those Who Pray

Advent, (Latin: adventus): the season of the ecclesiastical calendar, immediately preceding Christmas, when the Christian church has traditionally celebrated the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as anticipating His second advent at His return.

Lord Jesus, my Master, help me to bring to mind the significance of your coming.

It isn’t that I have forgotten the essentials of knowledge, but I need to be reminded of the deep truths associated with that knowledge, that in remembering the one I may not overlook the other.

You left the Father’s throne, you did not try to hold on to it, but made yourself to be as one who is without reputation. Lord of Glory, you became a nobody that I might become a somebody! – you took upon yourself servanthood so that instead of being served, as you deserved, you served others, and gave your life for them.

Baby of Bethlehem you became the exalted one, lifted up, and glorified. You were given a Name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus (your Name) every knee would bow. It was you Lord, abased for me, whom the Father raised to glory. It was all so personal. The angels were correct from the beginning – Glory to God in the Highest!

I cannot fully grasp the reasoning but I marvel and rejoice that you became my Savior and that all the fullness of the Godhead lived in you. Crucified, raised, and ascended, it is by your grace that you brought truth to me, not my search, nor my want. It was you who brought light to my heart and filled me with hope of eternity.

And so today it isn’t so much an event that happened two thousand years ago that stirs my soul, marvelous though it is to recall, but it is the Advent promise that this same Lord Jesus will come a second time, “in power and great glory,” and gather me together with Him and all the saints in the clouds of Heaven. “So shall we ever be with the Lord.”

In this season of anticipation help me to keep my eye fixed to the horizon. Help me always to be ready, to live ready. Lift me above present circumstance to look for the Son of Man who will come when I least expect Him, and who will gloriously and suddenly appear – my Great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

May the Holy Spirit set my heart to longing for that day, that I may not waste my life on trivia but seek first the Kingdom of God. Release me from the distractions that preoccupy me, and grant that I may serve you in holiness and righteousness all my days. That’s my prayer.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

-Dr. Wilfred Bellamy. Pastor, missionary, and former coordinator of the General Synod, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.