Immanuel... God With Us

Advent: God With Us from The Village Church on Vimeo.

Advent means "coming." Christ is coming! During this Advent season we anxiously await his second coming while reflecting on His first coming. We have SO much to be thankful for! As Matt Chandler says, the tricky part is keeping our focus on the "Substance and not the shadows" during this Christmas season. Christ is the substance. He came already and will come again. He is our King. He is our God. He came as fully man and fully God. He is our High Priest. Our Savior. Our Counselor. Our All in All. He is the Holy One. He is the substance.

The gifts and the family time and the wonderful food and the shopping and the Christmas parties and the cookies and the crafts and the Christmas cards are the shadows. They are shadows of Him. They are meant to point us to Him and to draw us to our knees in worship of Him. They are good and they are fun and they are enjoyable, but they are not the ultimate Substance of this season. We know that only the Substance satisfies. If we focus on the true Substance of this season, that is Christ, we are not disappointed, we are not let down, and we rejoice in His beautiful news.

May you and yours be blessed by the presence of the true and everlasting Substance this Christmas season!

Immanuel... God with us!

(Check out this Advent Guide from The Village Church for more resources on how to focus on HIM this season: http://www.thevillagechurch.net/mediafiles/advent-guide.pdf)