NIV, Once-A-Day: 25 Days of Advent Devotional

By Kenneth D. Boa and John Alan Turner

Prayer and Anticipation are Now in Season: 25 Devotions for Advent

Beginning on December 1, this Once-A-Day Christmastime devotional booklet takes you through the entire Advent season with thoughts on the person of Jesus: his involvement at the creation of the world, his life in the Gospel accounts, and who he is today. Along the way you will meet and examine the lives of various individuals involved in the incarnation, and during the week of Christmas examine the response to this miraculous and gracious event, both in heaven and on earth.

Written by Dr. Kenneth Boa, president of Reflections Ministries, these 25 devotions offer select Scripture passages that allow readers to gain a fuller perspective on Jesus' presence throughout the Bible. In addition, each devotion provides thoughts and questions for meditation, along with a prayer for each day, making them perfect for your own personal, family, or small-group use.

The 25 days of reading are broken out as follows:
• The Old Testament presence of Jesus: who He was at creation, where He shows up in other parts of the Old Testament, and more
• The people associated with the Nativity: Zechariah and Elisabeth, Mary and Joseph, John the Baptist, Herod, and the Magi
• The specifics and the people directly involved in the nativity: the shepherds, the angels, and the baby Jesus himself
• A Christmas reading that points ahead to his ministry, his passion and his rule as King

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Nov 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9780310419143

Kenneth D. Boa

Ken Boa (PhD, New York University; DPhil, University of Oxford) is the president of Reflections Ministries and Trinity House Publishers. His recent publications include Conformed to His Image, Face to Face, Pursuing Wisdom, The Art of Living Well, Wisdom at Work, Living What You Believe, and Sacred Readings.

Book preview

day 1

GENESIS 1:1,26–28,31

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the sixth day.

JOHN 1:1–5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

EPHESIANS 2:10

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

MEDITATION

As we begin this Advent season, we look forward to Christmas, to the celebration of the birth of Christ. The whole world seems to be focused only on the baby. But this is no ordinary baby. As difficult as this may be to understand, let us not forget that this baby was present from the beginning, long before his birth on this earth. Nothing was created without him, not anything in the heavens above, not anything on the earth below, and certainly not us. "Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’" (Genesis 1:26, emphasis added).

The secrets of time and space and eternity are found in this One, the Son of God, our Creator, our Sustainer, the One whose image we bear. It is only in him that we find our true dignity and purpose as people. He is the author and finisher of our faith, the One who remains faithful even when we are faithless. His entrance into our world means that we too can become all that God intended for us when he created us, that we may become more and more like his Son, who is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:3).

PRAYER

Thank you, sovereign Lord and Creator, for this day of beginnings and remembering. Thank you for making us in your glorious image, for honoring us with dignity and purpose. We praise you in this season of remembering who you truly are and how you have drawn near to us because of your great love for us. Give us wisdom as we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Son you sent to us. We will rejoice in this season of remembering, knowing that everything you have ever given and done is always not simply good but very good. It is in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

day 2

GENESIS 3:4–5,7–8,14–15,22–23

You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat from [the tree] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Then the eyes of both [the woman and her husband] were opened, and they realized they were naked … and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

So the LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this … I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

And the LORD God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil … So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden.

ISAIAH 59:1–2

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

ROMANS 5:12–19

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in