Today is our first Sunday of Advent. I love this time of year for a number of reasons. Advent is a time that we set aside each year to celebrate the birth of our Lord and King! It is a time when we are to long for or strongly desire His coming. The appropriate sense of the season is one of waiting with great anticipation for the Savior who will ransom captive Israel. This is the attitude of this portion of the season. It is an attitude of hope. Some of us were raised in Christian homes, and it’s hard to remember a time where Jesus was not in our life. It’s that way for several in our church. Praise God for that. However for some of us, we didn’t have that. No matter what your upbringing may have been, try to contemplate your life before Jesus saved you. Think about life before you made a public profession of faith. Think about a life of darkness and slavery. For all of us, no matter when we came to Christ, there are sins of the past which we deeply regret. We were in bondage. We were children of wrath. There was no hope for us. There is a list of sins given in 1 Corinthians 6, but there’s a great verse—verse 11 which states of those sins “such were some of you.” Now, think about the certainty that our salvation is secure. Think about our everlasting covenant from our everlasting God who does not break His promises. Indeed we hope in the promise of Christ!