| Title | : | Joy To The World: Daily Readings For Advent |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 46 |
| Publication | : | Published November 22, 2016 |
“This is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ.” said Charles Spurgeon at the start of his sermon on 23rd December 1855. After dispelling any notion of a religious necessity of celebrating Christmas, he went on, “However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year” as an opportunity to preach on the incarnation of Jesus.
Slow down this advent and reflect on the birth of Jesus with this 25-day advent devotional guide.
Joy To The World: Daily Readings For Advent Reviews
-
"In darkness he is our star, and in brightness he is our sun."
This was my daily devotional for Advent this year. Spurgeon is able to say more in one sentence than I could on an entire page. Such a blessing to sit at his feet in 2022. I am inspired to dust off my copy of "Faith's Checkbook" for 2023. My grandpa gave me a copy when I was a preteen and I am sure it has more to tell me. -
Christians looking for a great advent devotional will enjoy these selections from "the prince of preachers" to help celebrate the season.
-
I loved every second of this beautiful book. It helped prepare my heart for advent in such a meaningful way.
-
“I want none beside him. In life he is my life, and in death he shall be the death of death. In poverty Christ is our riches, in sickness he makes our bed. In darkness he is our star and in brightness he is our Sun.”
-
I couldn’t have hoped for better. All chapters are excerpts from a few of Spurgeon’s Christmas sermons. I’ll come back to this one again and again.
-
BEAUTIFUL readings for advent that are excerpts of Spurgeon's sermons. HIGHLY recommend for advent.
-
3.5 ⭐️
I love Spurgeon. That being said— sometimes he waxes eloquent, and other times he waxes fluffy. This book was a combination of both. 😆 There really we’re some great selections in here though, so don’t let me discourage you from reading it.
The other issue is that this book was obviously self-published. The compiler needs to go back through and correct several typos. -
How awesome it would have been to sit under a preacher like Spurgeon!
-
“In darkness he is our star, and in brightness he is our Sun.”
Such a good advent. I think this would be a good advent to read with your kids. Both children and adults would appreciate this advent. -
I do enjoyed this little book with excerpts from Spurgeon’s advent sermons! I think reading this may become a Christmas tradition for me.
-
Good thoughts hindered by a lack of context
I enjoy reading Spurgeon’s lectures and sermons as they are generally very thought-provoking and deep. While marketed as an advent devotional, this is a collection of excerpts from Spurgeon’s sermons around Christmas time. The excerpts themselves are worthy of 5 stars, however, they are hindered by a lack of context. I would have rather had longer portions of the sermons to digest and meditate on instead of “devotional-length” snippets that were never intended to stand on their own outside of the context of the sermon itself.
5 stars for the general thoughts contained in each section, 3 stars for needing a greater context = 4 stars overall -
5 stars for Spurgeon
3 stars for the compilation because no page numbers, wrong sources of an entire sermon, and changing of old English to modern language.
——————
Few people have as incredible theology of suffering as Spurgeon. He wasn’t one to wallow, though his suffering was severe. He wasn’t one to complain about or embellish his sufferings. And any talk surrounding an affliction pointed his hearer to Christ who Spurgeon says “never mourner a better comforter than Christ hath been to my spirit” (D25).
“Joy to the World” was such an easy read for Advent. Not only was it short and simple to stay on track each day of the month of December (like this book was so NOT overwhelming like some Advent books, I’m talking 2 minutes a day), but my soul was left more joyful, more hopeful, more earnestly longing for the return of our Immanuel.
This book is wonderful in that it takes pieces of several of Sprugeon’s sermons on the Son of God’s incarnation and makes it devotional in nature. “He was born to save. If he does not save he was born in vain, for the object of his birth was salvation. If he shall not be a Saviour, then the mission of God to earth has missed its end, for its design was that lost sinners might be saved” (D21). The only disappointment in this book was that the editor removed the old English and modernized it and there were a few of the sermon sources wrong. These are just personal preferences, however.
Christmas is a joyful time, though the hurt and angst looms over us daily. But the believer has reason to hope, to rejoice. “Man is like a harp unstrung, and the music of his soul’s living strings is discordant, his whole nature wails with sorrow; but the son of David, that mighty harpist, has come to restore the harmony of humanity, and where his gracious fingers move among the strings, the touch of the fingers of an incarnate God brings forth music sweet as that of the spheres, and melody as rich as an angel’s song” (D11).
I definitely recommend adding this to your next year’s Advent list if you are looking for a simple read to refocus in the midst of a busy season.
#readRENEEread -
Charles Spurgeon has a very eloquent style of writing that reminds me of CS Lewis. This is my first by him and will not need my last. What an encouragement and refreshment to the soul to read someone whose heart is so on fire that it comes through in all his words, igniting a greater burning in your own heart.
If only Christian writers and apologists of today could come through like some of these men of old. The desire never seems as pure, the conviction never so strong, the declarations never so ardent- most likely due to a godless, secular, ease and luxury driven culture which has dampened the affections of Christan men and divided their loyalties.
This is surely not the case with Spurgeon. Sometimes you have to go back to find what you are looking for. Just recently I had been thinking how lacking all the devotionals have been that I have been reading lately and then I found this one. And the minimally "cleaned up", modernized language helped!
Excellent! -
Wonderful Advent Reading!
This book contains 25 devotional readings for the month of December up through Christmas day. This is a lovely way to meditate on and celebrate the birth of Christ! -
A joy filled collection of advent readings taken from Spurgeon’s sermons.
-
Last year I had a book of C. H. Spurgeon’s Christmas sermons and thought to read them a bit at a time, like a devotional. But it didn’t work. I felt like I wasn’t getting the full impact and flow of thought without reading the whole sermon in context. So I ended up reading one each weekend
This year, however, I found a devotional book made up of short (2-3 pages on an iPad mini Kindle app) excerpts from some of his sermons: Joy to the World: Daily Readings for Advent. I was looking for something with short readings since my regular reading routine is pretty full, and this fit the bill.
Sometimes books made of excerpts from other books or sermons don’t always come across well: it’s obvious that some context is missing. But that wasn’t the case with this book. Each reading seemed like a complete thought. The English has been modernized a bit, but it didn’t seem to take away from the readings to me.
One of the themes is how a humble manger birth made Christ approachable: “We might tremble to approach a throne, but we cannot fear to approach a manger. Never could there be a being more approachable than Christ” (p. 20).
I also liked very much the thought in Day 6’s reading that God was pulling invisible strings to orchestrate the details of Christ’s birth, even to the point of the census being decreed to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where the Scriptures prophesied Christ would be born. That’s a comfort in these times. -
A daily advent devotional made up of sections of Christmas or Christmas -related sermons from Charles Spurgeon. This is the third year Delaney and I have gone through an advent devotional leading up to Christmas, and I think this one was my favorite. I had read a few of the sermons selections were taken from before but having these excerpts taken allowed for an even deeper focus. Very thankful that I got to go through this book.
-
Charles Spurgeon's sermons are wonderful. This is a good collection of excerpts from some of his Christmas sermons, accompanied by the appropriate Scriptures. The only problem I have is that the compiler decided to "dumb down" the beautiful language, to make it "updated for the modern reader". I probably would not have purchased the book if I had known that to be the case.
-
Year after year after year I’ve tried Advent reading books and given up after a few days because they were too boring or too long or too academic or just weird. This is the first one that our family has read in its entirety and deeply enjoyed. Each day is a short selection from Spurgeon’s Christmas sermons and is deeply pastoral. Get yourself a copy.
-
Some real gems in here. I will probably read it again in future Advent seasons. However, it was also choppy and/or confusing at times, since someone else stitched together various selections from Spurgeon's sermons to create this book.
-
God and Glam Advent 2021
The passages are powerful and short, but at times a little arcane in language and lacked personal impact for me. It isn’t about me, but learning about Jesus and Advent, but things only stood out about 50% of the time. -
I like Spurgeon but this was someone compiling bits of his various sermons related to Christmas/Advent into a 25 day devotional, which felt clunky, confusing, and incomplete. There were also a lot of formatting and punctuation errors.
-
Excellent Devotional
I love Charles Surgeon's pastoral, scholarly tone as he guides the reader day by day through the Advent season. I really felt the love of my Lord & the grace which comes with the season. -
I don’t think I am a fan of Spurgeon…
-
An excellent Advent devotional from the "prince of preachers."
-
Wonderful book to read for Advent. A blessing to those who love Spurgeon and a wonderful way to get to know him if you are unfamiliar. Highly recommend.
