{"id":23064,"date":"2014-11-30T00:20:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T05:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=23064"},"modified":"2014-11-29T22:22:29","modified_gmt":"2014-11-30T03:22:29","slug":"hope-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/30\/hope-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent, Week One ~ Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SHhopeadvent\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first week of the Advent season is to acknowledge Hope<\/span><\/strong>. \u00a0Hope<\/span> is where we realize that God will always fulfill His promises. It does not mean we will not see troubles, but we will see God’s best, as long as we seek His will first. As we celebrate this Christmas season, let’s just forget the political correctness…let us worship and proclaim our Savior’s birth as never before!<\/p>\n

As I researched Advent, I came across this devotional. The link is located at the end of this blog. Please feel free to use this throughout the coming season.<\/p>\n

Lighting of the Candle<\/em><\/h3>\n

[As someone lights the first purple candle, the following should be read or paraphrased.]<\/p>\n

We light this candle because, like God\u2019s people centuries ago, we also look forward with hope<\/span><\/strong> to the coming of the Shepherd. The purple color of the candle reminds us of the seriousness of our hope<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Psalms 80:1-7<\/em> <\/a>
\nIn this psalm, we join the people of Israel as they invite God, their Shepherd, to save and to restore them.<\/p>\n

Isaiah 40:1-11<\/em> <\/a>
\nThis passage looks ahead to the coming of the Lord, Who will care for His people like a shepherd.<\/p>\n

Revelation 7:9-17<\/em> <\/a>
\nLike God\u2019s people before the coming of Christ, we also look ahead to the time when Christ, who is both the Lamb and our Shepherd, will finish His work and \u201cGod will wipe away every tear\u201d from our eyes.<\/p>\n

Prayer of Hope<\/span><\/em>
\n[To be read or paraphrased]<\/h3>\n

Dear God, as we light this candle, we hope for Your coming as our Good Shepherd. Please gather us in Your arms, feed us with spiritual food, wipe away every tear from our eyes, and \u201clet Your face shine, that we may be saved.\u201d Come, our Shepherd! Amen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

{<\/strong> Read more: http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/series\/advent-devotional-guide-preparing-for-the-coming-of-christ\/#ixzz3KUfQx5uJ<\/a>\u00a0}<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first week of the Advent season is to acknowledge Hope. \u00a0Hope is where we realize that God will always fulfill His promises. It does not mean we will not see troubles, but we will see God’s best, as long as we seek His will first. As we celebrate this Christmas season, let’s just forget […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":23087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[4651,7888,3367,1287,425,518,7890,7889,7891,7892,7893,3174,1071,7894],"class_list":["post-23064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-advent","tag-advent-devotional-guide","tag-daily-devotions-2","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-hope","tag-isaiah-401-11","tag-mark-d-roberts","tag-psalms-801-7","tag-revelation-79-17","tag-romans-1512-13","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-tina-marin","tag-week-1-of-advent","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SHhopeadvent.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23064"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23088,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23064\/revisions\/23088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}