Thursday in Advent

1Verse 1. I will stand at my guard post and station myself on the ramparts. I will watch to see what He will say to me, and how I should answer when corrected. 2Verse 2. Then the LORD answered me: “Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it. 3Verse 3. For the vision awaits an appointed time; it testifies of the end and does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and will not delay. 4Verse 4. Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright — but the righteous will live by faith — 5Verse 5. and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations to himself and collects all the peoples as his own.

7Verse 7. But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Verse 8. More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9Verse 9. and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith. 10Verse 10. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, 11Verse 11. and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.