• Journal
  • Here are some tools to help you with the devotionals:
    • A Guide to Journaling & Prayer
    • A Guide to Self-Reflection
    • A chart to help articulate feelings

• Read & Reflect

  The coming of Jesus was promised from the very first chapters of the Bible.  For the rest of the week, we will look at Old Testament glimpses into the coming of Christ into the world.

  Genesis 3:14–24 (ESV) 

  ¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

  “Because you have done this,

    cursed are you above all livestock

    and above all beasts of the field;

  on your belly you shall go,

    and dust you shall eat

    all the days of your life.

  ¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

  he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.”

  ¹⁶ To the woman he said,

  “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;

    in pain you shall bring forth children.

  Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,

    but he shall rule over you.”

  ¹⁷ And to Adam he said,

  “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

    and have eaten of the tree

  of which I commanded you,

   ‘You shall not eat of it,’

  cursed is the ground because of you;

    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

  ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

    and you shall eat the plants of the field.

  ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face

    you shall eat bread,

  till you return to the ground,

    for out of it you were taken;

  for you are dust,

    and to dust you shall return.”

  ²⁰ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹ And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

  ²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

   

  “The offspring of the woman would eventually crush the serpent’s head, a promise fulfilled in Christ’s victory over Satan—a victory in which all believers will share (see Ro 16:20).”[1]

  Genesis 3:15, 21

  • Notice that even in the pronouncement of judgment, there is a hopeful promise. What will this promise entail for God? 

  Genesis 3:15-19

  • Reflect on the consequences of human sin for man personally, as well as for all of creation. Why, and in what ways, does disobedience to God weaken my ability to cope with the rest of creation?

   

• Gratitude Journal & Prayer of Thanksgiving
• Write down three things that you are thankful for.

[1] NIV Study Bible, study notes (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995), 10.