Thursday 23 December 2021
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
As we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ this Christmas day and move forward into the new year, these four words: God is with us are the simple truth that inspires the greatest Hope for mankind and, takes our take our breath away with the magnificent reality that God came to live with us.
Not just for the Christmas season because it’s warm and festive and swaddled in cuteness, but because God himself comes right down into the deepest need and messiness of our everyday lives.
The almighty King of the universe had to be with us — not because He had nothing better to do, not because he just wanted to spend time with us — He had to come because we were separated from His presence and life and there was no other way to reconcile the relationship. We could not go to God in our sin and brokenness, but He could come to us! Our eternity depends on God being with us!
This realization is what makes Matthew 1:21-23 so powerful, “‘She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.’”
But . . . if I desperately need to be saved from my sins and restored, and if I’m completely incapable of fixing my broken relationship with God, then the fact that He would live among us, die for us, and rise again over us simply so that He could have a relationship with us is the most breath taking, hope filled and glorious Truth in the universe! Praise God that He desires to be with us! May we equally desire to be with Him and whatever the future may hold we have the certain Hope God is with us and will never leave us.
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Matthew 1:18-23
The wonder of Christmas is that the God Who lived with us can now live within us.