Tag: first and the last

Awaiting His Arrival: From First to Last

barnstormingblog1 Comment
 rainjewels
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Revelation 22:13
Of the Father’s love begotten,
ere the worlds began to be,
he is Alpha and Omega;
he the source, the ending he,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see,
evermore and evermore!
~Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

Here is the message of Advent: faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see this Last One and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we have the strength to overcome the terrors into which God has let the world sink. God uses these terrors to awaken us from sleep, as Paul says, and to show us that it is time to repent, time to change things. It is time to say, “all right, it was night; but let that be over now and let us get ready for the day.” We must do this with a decision that comes out of the very horrors we experience. Because of this our decision will be unshakable even in uncertainty.

If we want Advent to transform us – our homes and hearts, and even nations – then the great question for us is whether we will come out of the convulsions of our time with this determination: Yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. a waking up must begin somewhere. It is time to put things back where God intended them.
~Father Alfred Delp, written in a Nazi prison in 1945 shortly before he was hanged for treason  “The Shaking Reality of Advent”

 

rainjewels2

Advent Meditation–Omega

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

As Jesus is the beginning and the end, the first and the last,  he becomes everything in between. We are to remember him in anything we do, or say, or think.

From Charles Spurgeon: “… if you have left out Christ, there is no manna from heaven, no water from the rock, no refuge from the storm, no healing for the sick, no life for the dead.  If you leave out Christ, you have left the sun out of the day, and the moon out of the night, you have left the waters out of the sea, and the foods out of the river, you have left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of the body, you have left joy out of heaven, yea, you have robbed all of its all.  There is no gospel worth thinking of, much less worth proclaiming in Jehovah’s name, if Jesus be forgotten.”

Revelation 22:16