Churches throughout the world take the weeks before Christmas to turn their eyes toward Bethlehem's manger and pray for a deepening understanding about the meaning of God's coming to the world in Jesus. Two questions have always been at the heart of what we call "Advent Season":

Churches throughout the world take the weeks before Christmas to turn their eyes toward Bethlehem's manger and pray for a deepening understanding about the meaning of God's coming to the world in Jesus. Two questions have always been at the heart of what we call "Advent Season

• Who was Jesus?
• Why did he come?

At LAC, we will join the global church's celebration of Advent again in 2012. What we will do this year is listen to Jesus' personal claims of who he was and why he came into the world. Those claims create huge challenges for the view that many would like to hold about Jesus, i.e., that he was only a good, moral man who said a lot of profound things. C.S. Lewis made it clear that as acceptable as that view may be to all sorts of people, it is not one that Jesus allowed:

What did Jesus say about himself? Many of Jesus' clear claims about his identity are located in John's gospel. The stage is set particularly well by the question some would-be Jesus followers posed in John 8:53: "Jesus, who do you think you are?"

I pray that when we hear Jesus' own words about himself we will see him more clearly, love him more, and follow him in ways that reflect his glory to our world.

To His Glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor