Emmanuel is Lord

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." Matthew 1:23

Hello readers.  Welcome to my heart.  Let's begin. 

This isn't a Christmas blog. Lol.  But I do want us to look into the name Immanuel, which means God with us---and let's investigate what that means?
Let's begin with some scripture. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21

So, God in His glory, in His holiness, in His perfection, became a man so that we might become the righteousness of Himself. 

Lol. I could seriously end the blog here.  But let's unpack that. 

This is what burdens me about people who has a distaste for Christ.  I feel that they have heard something incorrectly or have experienced something that was associated with Christ but was misrepresented and have turned away from Him.  Because naturally, I'm pretty sure every human is drawn to sacrificial love.  I'm pretty sure every human is drawn to someone doing something nice for someone else.  Never will you see someone giving food to a homeless person and another person rebuking them for doing such a nice and thoughtful thing.  Or when someone out of their own will power decides to help you with something that you didn't not want to do yourself---I'm pretty sure that gesture would move your heart. 

So this is God's love for us, bottled up in that one verse.  That God, who's very nature is holy and separated from anything evil, from anything sinful, entered into the filth-----for you. 

God with us. 

So, if God is willing to go to that extremity to set things right between us and Himself, which first of all flexes His power and His Lordship over everything to be able to do what He wants.  In Ephesians, it reads that God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:5. 

So He took pleasure in makes things right.  He took pleasure in stepping into our helpless situation to rescue us.  This further's my confidence that He's always with us---because He's already proven He can be.

I recently read this article about this redeemed bank robber and former prison inmate, and he says that surely Jesus was always with him.  He is able to testify that because he has weighed the truth that grace was so quickly to come upon him when He seeked for it.  He didn't have to work up towards it, it was ready when he became ready to recieve it from Jesus----because He's with us. 

It's easy for us to dismiss that thought because Jesus proclaims and commands to be Lord in our lives.  So we visualize a C.E.O of a company, yes he's a nice boss but we never see him.  Yes we wants us to be proud of our company, but we never see him.   Even when we call God, "The Big Man Upstairs," as if illustrating that God is on the thirty second floor and we're on the first floor.  So the gospel tells us that Jesus is with us.  Instead of being on the top floor, He's sitting in the cubicle-- with us.  He's mopping up the bathroom --- with us.  He's handling the rude customers at the customer service---with us.  He's delivering mail--with us.  He's backing in the delivery truck--with us.  He's WITH US. 

Our Lord, who asks us to submit to Him fully with child-like faith, is with us.  He's not an overbearing presence of authority, but a slow to anger compassionate Father with soverign authority to rule it all---and that is what we have with us.