Inside Christmas: Life With Emmanuel, God With UsSample

Emmanuel, God With Us. 

It’s hard to appreciate electricity unless you have known life without it. It becomes common, expected, and only really noticed when not there. 

Today it’s as close as flipping a switch, and rarely is a thought given to all that took place to make it happen. It’s not just the wires behind the walls or even the power plants, but the countless people and moments throughout history that all came together to make your experience today possible. 

In Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus, we see Jesus called Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Here Matthew is quoting from the book of Isaiah written some 700+ years earlier. 

It was as if everyone was living in the dark until this moment, with only a select few who were given light. Jesus didn’t just come to save us from going to hell; He came to be with us. He came to connect us once again to God the Father, plugging us into the power we were created to carry and be the light of a world He designed. 

We don’t just celebrate the birth of Jesus; we celebrate the defining moment in history where the game changed for all humanity for the rest of eternity.  

God was no longer far away. He was on His way. On His way to us so we could not just live with Him forever in eternity but right here, right now. 

Look around you at all the places electricity is at work, making your life better, easier, more enjoyable, and productive. 

Now know Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, the same Spirit with power conceived Him in Mary, raised Christ from the dead is the same Spirit with power and that very same Spirit with power living inside of us who belong to Him.  As we learn to flip the switch in our hearts and minds to engage and access God within us intentionally, our lives will get better, easier, more enjoyable, more powerful, and more productive. 

Pray-

Thank you, God, for sending Jesus! We celebrate Jesus’s birth, and the moment everything changed. From the beginning, your Holy Spirit was moving and working, and now you are moving and working on the inside of me. Thank you for being Emmanuel, God with us. 

Read- 

Matthew 1:23 AMP

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel”—which, when translated, means, “God with us.”

Luke 1:35 AMP

 “Then the angel replied to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you [like a cloud]; for that reason the holy (pure, sinless) Child shall be called the Son of God.”

Philippians 2:13 AMP

 “For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure.”