As our children were growing up, we realized that the holiday season would be a significant time of the year for our family. Over the years we have made a conscious effort to keep the focus of the season about Christ, who is Jesus the Messiah. We celebrate! And not just on December 24 and 25. We start at Thanksgiving and don’t stop until early January. We put up decorations and listen to holiday music of all kinds from traditional to jazz. We give gifts but we don’t make that the focus. We have a grand celebration at church and we spend time with friends and our family.
Many people participate in what is traditionally called Advent by lighting candles and reading devotional passages. Some churches mark the four Sundays before Christmas as the Advent season and include special scripture readings and hymns. Advent also includes secular traditions like the usage of an Advent Calendar to open up little gifts on each of the 24 days of December leading up to Christmas day.
One practice we started several years ago as a family was to take the days leading up to Christmas and make them more significant. At the time I was studying about the people who lived in the time of the prophets before the Messiah’s birth and how they “looked forward” to the coming of the Messiah with anticipation. My idea was to use the time of anticipation for Christmas day as a way to recount and learn about the different prophesies that told of the coming Messiah.
After several years of doing this with my family I decided to share these devotionals with others. This website, 24 Verses, highlights a different prophetic passage each day from December 1 through December 24. It is not a complete list of prophesies, just ones I decided to think about. Use the links in the sidebar to follow along each day.
I hope this will be a blessing and an encouragement to you.
Rick Tuttle