1. Let’s pray this week for the Lord’s church catholic. It’s during this “Advent season” that the distinctiveness of Presbyterians—even our distinctiveness, one Presbyterian from another—often most clearly announces itself.  Some of us Presbyterians “do Advent". We light the candles, read the special readings of the season, and sing the hymns. Others of us, in deference to the regulative principle of worship, do not. Let’s pray anew for the unity of Christ’s entire church, beginning with this little household of faith known as Presbyterianism. And let God’s infallible word lead us wherever it will. “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”  Isaiah 8:20

2. Whatever our practice of Advent, it’s plain from history that over 2000 years ago, God himself condescended to visit humanity in the person and work of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. His first humble advent clarified for all humanity the most significant issues of life, and in clarifying them divided men, even families. On the person and work of Christ, churches and families remain divided today. Pray not for compromise nor bending, but for an increase in the scope and power of Gospel preaching, that people may know exactly on which side of the Lord Jesus Christ they stand. “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17