Advent Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-19 and Acts 3:19–26

HOPE🕯

I try to be deliberate in my morning time with God. My impulse is to check my email or or listen to some news of the day. I need to consciously choose to sit quietly and listen to worship music and read the Word. Have you ever noticed that we don't capitalize the word "news" when speaking of what man has spoken, but we do capitalize the word "Word" when speaking of what God has spoken? What God says about my day will affect me so much more than what man says about my day.

I was listening to O Come O Come Emmanuel this morning. As we await the celebration of Jesus' birth, we rejoice because with Jesus we no longer live in captivity or exile.

[Old Testament] Deuteronomy 18:15-19

[Moses speaking:] 15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. 16 This is what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die!’ 17 Then the Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name.' "

[New Testament] Acts 3:19–26  

[The Apostle Peter speaking:] 19 "Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for you as the Messiah. 21 Heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning. 22 Moses said:[other mss add to the fathers] The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to everything he tells you. 23 And everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be completely cut off from the people.[Dt 18:15–19]

24 “In addition, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, have also foretold these days. 25 You are the sons[heirs] of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, And all the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.[Gn 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4] 26 God raised up his servant[other mss add Jesus] and sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.”

CSB