Advent 2023: Emmanuel – God With Us

“They will call Him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23).

It is a promise I have held to through this difficult year.  God’s presence has given me strength day by day and bolstered my faith. But to truly understand the name and its significance, we have to go back to Exodus, to the most incredible statement by God: “Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:9).  Pagan gods did not dwell with human beings; they were far too important to be bothered with mortals and their petty lives.  But the God who created, sustained, and ruled over all things wanted to dwell with His people – first in a tabernacle and then in the temple. 

Until their idolatry and sin became unbearable and God said, “Enough” and withdrew His presence.  Ezekiel records the terrible sight of the cloud of His presence drawing up and away. Shortly afterward the people were taken into exile and the temple was destroyed.  And though it was rebuilt when the exiles returned to Jerusalem, the Lord’s presence did not return.

Until the angel visited a carpenter, betrothed to a young woman, and proclaimed the return of Immanuel.  Joseph would instinctively know what this name meant – God with us.  God came once again to dwell among men – this time as a human baby born to peasant parents and laid in a feeding trough for animals.  The name “Emmanuel” recalls the glorious presence of God in the midst of His people.  But not just in the temple.  No, this time Emmanuel would walk among them, eat with them, touch them with human hands – and die for them.  God had been absent and silent for hundreds of years, but now He had returned to His people.

Emmanuel is still present with His people today.  He is present in the Holy Spirit that dwells in every believer.  He is present in our worship.  He is present when we pray.  He is present when we rustle the pages of the Bible.  He is present when we reach out to touch a suffering soul with His love.  He is present in holy, divine moments and in the everyday events of our lives.  Because He is Emmanuel, He is always present. Because He is God with us, we are never alone.

Acts: Receive the Holy Spirit

It is a sad truth in our churches; not everyone who claims to be a Christian is a true believer and follower of Christ. Some put up a very good front, and we’ll see an example in a couple of weeks. But some who believe themselves to be Christians are sadly wrong. Case in point: read Acts 19:1-7.

Paul traveled to Ephesus where he encountered twelve disciples – but not disciples of Jesus. A disciple is not a solely Christian concept. Disciples are learners and followers and go back in Scripture to Moses and Joshua, Eli and Samuel, and Elijah and Elisha among many others. The secular version of disciples are apprentices, learning a trade or craft from a master.

When Paul questioned the disciples, he realized they did not know fully about Jesus and life in Him. That speaks volumes to the present state of the church. They had no knowledge of the Holy Spirit. They had received “John’s baptism” but John the Baptist baptized for repentance of sins, which is the first step to full conversion to Christ. Another point at which the modern church falls flat. John was beheaded before Jesus’ death and resurrection and before the filling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Thus, John’s disciples taught what John taught, which was true, but incomplete. Paul brought them up to speed on Jesus and they believed and “were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.” They also received the baptism – or filling – of the Holy Spirit, who comes to every true believer.

Paul would later write to the churches in Rome saying, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Rom 8:9). How can we know if we have the Spirit of Christ? “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires” (v. 5). They produce the “fruit [or evidence] of the Spirit: love, Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). They “keep in step with the Spirit” (v. 25), and they live so as not to “grieve the Holy Spirit” (Eph 4:29). The Spirit of Christ is the mark of a true Christian.

When I meet a fellow Christian for the first time, the Holy Spirit in them and the Holy Spirit in me confirms to each of us that we are family in Christ. Beloved, don’t settle for an incomplete faith that cannot save you. Know Jesus. Be all in. And be filled with the Holy Spirit of Christ.

Follow Me

I love the way Joy follows me around the house. I love to hear her behind me, those little feet slapping on the wood floor. My heart desires to be a person worthy of being followed. And I don’t mean social media “followers.” I mean followed in the same way Paul meant it when he told the church in Corinth, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). I want to be a model of Christ for others.  That’s a huge responsibility so I need to always be conscious of the example I am providing. I know all too well that I’m not always going to get it right. Yet even when I fail, I can model repentance and the sweet consolation of God’s forgiveness.

It is good to have Christ-like examples you can follow. Many godly women and men have played a huge part in shaping who I am as a woman, a disciple, and a witness just by the way they lived their lives. They weren’t perfect, but they have been a wonderful grace gift on my Christian path. They walked what they talked and followed the Lord in imperfect obedience. I am deeply grateful to God for them.

I want to offer you some challenges today. First, find someone who follows Christ, whose life is patterned after His, and get close to them. Learn from them. Listen to them. Pick up their holy habits. Don’t expect them to be perfect; learning to give others grace is an important part of the Christian life. Second, follow Christ so closely that others can follow you. Live your faith out loud where others can see it and can see Jesus in you. Do your best to be conscious of who may be watching you. And consider bringing someone close to you so you can help them grow. And third, – or first and foremost – follow Christ.  Mentors and seasoned saints are a blessing as we grow. But people may fail and disappoint you, Jesus never will.

I pray that I will always be a godly example for my granddaughter to follow. I pray that I can be a good example for others as they witness my life, even the slips and failures. Beloved, let’s commit to be the kind of disciples of whom people can say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23).

God’s Will

We have all wondered, “What is God’s will for my life?”  It’s a good question but there is a bigger plan in place than just your life and mine. First, let’s widen the scope.

Paul said God’s will, “is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph 1:9, 10). We get a glimpse of that in Daniel’s heavenly vision of the coronation of “the Ancient of Days” (Dan 7:9-10). The big picture of God’s will for all creation is the sovereign rule of His Son.

Now let’s scale this back to a more personal level. What is God’s will for you and me? That depends on where we are in relationship with Him. God has a will for His redeemed children and He has a will for those who are not His children.  Paul told the Athenians that God works in the lives of people “so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:27). Everything that God does in the life of an unbeliever is designed to draw his attention to his Creator. God never meant for man to blindly stumble through life and hopefully trip over Him. He acts with purpose and intention in every circumstance, even down to “the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (v. 26).

When the unbeliever becomes a believer God’s will sharpens – and often so do His methods. Paul declared that God’s purpose for every believer is “to be conformed to the likeness of His Son” (Rom 8:29). That is His “good, pleasing, and perfect will (Rom 12:2). That is what everything after conversion is working toward – to make you like Jesus.

Does that mean God doesn’t have an individual purpose for you? Not at all. God gives His children gifts and talents to serve Him and the church. Your love of music or art or your natural giftedness with children point you to His purpose for you. I have loved words and writing since I was a little girl because God’s will for me is to be a writer and He gave me a big mouth because He wanted me to be a teacher.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, God’s will is that you will be His child, reflecting Jesus in the world, and be part of the heavenly crowd at His Son’s coronation. Everything is working toward that end. Because that, Beloved, is what your life is all about.

Time to Change

Joy does not like to wear dirty clothes. She insists that she must change if she sees just a little spot on her shirt. Last weekend her Daddy took her to a trampoline place to jump to her heart’s content, which also got her clothes dirty. She protested until she got home and changed.

In Zechariah, Joshua became the high priest when the Jews returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity.  (Note: this is about a thousand years after Moses’ Joshua.)  In Zechariah’s vision, Joshua was standing before the Lord with “satan standing at his right side to accuse him” (3:1). The Lord God rebuked satan for his lies. Joshua represented Jerusalem, the city of the Lord’s temple.  Joshua was “dressed in filthy clothes” and the word used here means his clothes were soiled with human excrement. An angel came and removed his filthy clothes, symbolizing the Lord taking away the sin of Jerusalem. Then he put “rich garments” on Joshua and “a clean turban” on his head (vs 4,5). He dressed him in fine garments used only for a special occasion and crowned his head with purity. God cleansed Jerusalem and gave them back their dignity and purity as His people.

This is also a picture of Jesus, “the Branch who was to come” (v. 8). I hope you can see the prophecy clearly. Even the name “Joshua” was the Hebrew equivalent of “Jesus.” Joshua foreshadowed Jesus, the pure and holy Son of God who was stained with all the filth of humankind. But Jesus put off those filthy clothes and left them in the grave and He put on the garments of the priestly king (Heb 6:20; Matt 27:11). He is now in heaven clothed in majesty (Ps 93:1).  

This is also a picture of you and me and all who will believe in Him. We wore clothes stained with the filth of our sins, and satan was hurling accusations (Rev 12:10). But Jesus “Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Pet 2:24). He clothed us in “garments of salvation and robes of righteousness” (Is 61:10). We are now “clothed with Christ” (Gal 3:27). And with those new holy clothes, we have a new nature (Col 3:10), and even a new mind – “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

Dear one, it’s time to change. It’s time to take off the old filthy clothes and dress like who you are. Clean. Pure. Righteous. Holy. Step behind the curtain, Beloved. Jesus is waiting for you in the dressing room.

J is for Joy

“The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with Joy” (Psalm 126:3).

What great things has God done for you?  Have you thought about His “showers of blessings” lately?  When my heart becomes a little bit sour or I am sad and weary, I sit down with paper and pencil and go through my ABCs. No, not the alphabet, but the ABCs of gratitude. It’s a great exercise for the mind and heart, although it does get challenging around Q and X and Z. Here’s a sample:

A – Air conditioning (I do live in the deep South and it is the dog days of summer). And Advent – that Jesus came and will come again.

B – The Bible – God’s Holy Word – my passion and calling. And The Baptist College of Florida where I’m blessed to work.

C – Coffee (do I hear an Amen?).  And Christ my Savior. The church – both the Universal Church and my Christian family at Rehobeth Baptist Church. And fresh clean sheets on the bed.

D – Donald, my sweet husband of 34 years. And deliverance from sin and death.

E – Eternal life. Endurance – especially now that I’m in grad school. And education. And elephants (Roll Tide!)

F – Family and Friends – the greatest treasures this side of heaven! And fried chicken. And the faithfulness of God. And Forgiveness.

G – God’s amazing grace. And my granddaughter, Joy. And the Gospel.

I won’t go through the whole alphabet, but I think you get my point.  One sure way to find Joy when you’re running low is to “count your many blessings,” because Joy and gratitude are two sides of the same coin. I don’t have to get all the way to the last letter to see God’s good hand in and over my life.

Maybe this year has been filled with heartache, grief, disappointment, or struggle. Mine has too.  These certainly make it difficult to be thankful and Joyful.  Still, I have no doubt that somewhere between A and Z there are blessings you can grab onto to restore Joy to your heart. If you woke up this morning, you already have at least one: L is for the gift of life.

The Bible continually calls us to remember and rejoice in God our Savior. Do you need to reflect on the great things that God has done for you? Beloved, maybe it’s time to go back to school and practice your ABCs.  J is for Joy.

Living Your Life on Purpose

You may call it “God’s will for your life,” or “God’s plan.” You might consider it your “life’s mission.” I rarely thought about it at all, but now I understand that all of life is about God’s purpose.  I recently told a friend “I wish, when I was younger, someone would have told me that I was created for a purpose.  It would have changed everything for me – the choices I made, the people I surrounded myself with, how I responded to difficulties, how I invested my time – even how I raised my son.”  I never thought about my life in terms of purpose. I just thought I would go along making decisions as they came up never planning farther ahead than the next weekend. It wasn’t until I discovered a love of words that I realized I wanted to be a writer.  It wasn’t until I was saved and in a relationship with my Creator that my love for words became a love for The Word and a burning passion for Bible study was set ablaze in me. I had discovered my purpose: to know God through His Word and help others know Him too. There is such a huge difference between living your life the best way you can and living your life knowing you have a purpose. 

But there’s something else we need to understand about God’s purpose. Romans 8:28 says “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”  So what is God’s purpose?  Go one verse further: “For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers” (v. 29).  There’s my real purpose – to become like Jesus.  Writing and teaching are secondary purposes.  God’s whole, divine plan for my life – and for yours –  is to transform us into mirror images of His Son.  We need to order our entire lives around that purpose – every choice we make, every response we give, every thought, how we invest our years and months and days and hours – every moment should be lived with one purpose in mind. To be like Jesus.

Beloved – your purpose is clear – it was written in the blood of Jesus.  And it changes everything.  Will you live your life on purpose?

Power and Love

If you want to know what was important to the biblical writers – and thus to the Holy Spirit who inspired the message – look for repetition. I was going in a whole other direction with this devotional when the Holy Spirit stopped me and said, “Look at the text. What do you see over and over?” Power and love. Both words appear three times in Ephesians 3:14-21. I’ll let you read that passage while I wait for you here.

This is a beautiful prayer from Paul’s heart to “the saints in Ephesus” (1:1). It is also my daily prayer over my granddaughter. It is the apostle’s plea that God would “strengthen [them] with power” (v. 16) and “establish [them] in love” (v. 17). He prayed that they would have unified power to know and understand the immensity of Christ’s love (v. 18-19). And he assured them that God’s power was working in them to bring everlasting glory to Christ Jesus (v. 20-21).

The “power” that Paul used in verses 16 and 20 is dynamis and is the root word from which we derive “dynamite.” It’s not an explosive, destructive force, but is the power, or energy, that the Holy Spirit exerts for a strong and dynamic faith through which God can work. The power in verse 18 means that this is “full-strength” power – the Spirit is giving us everything He’s got.

Here’s what amazes me. This power is directed toward enabling us to grasp how much Christ loves us. I just looked up the word “grasp” and I kid you not, I have holy goosebumps. In English it means “to comprehend” but check out how deep it goes in the Greek: “of Christ by his holy power and influence laying hold of the human mind and will, in order to prompt and govern it” (Strong’s Greek Lexicon (niv) (blueletterbible.org).

For most of my life, I had the hardest time believing God loved me. Growing up, people who told me they loved me abused and used me. I was rejected by my peers and then by my ex-husband. And I was supposed to somehow believe that God loved me. Oh, I believed in God’s love – but not for me. And then Christ began to work His power in me to help me grasp how wide and long and high and deep His love is – for me. I may forget every theology lesson I’ve ever learned, but I will never forget that Jesus loves me – this I know.

He loves you too. That’s why He prompts me to call you “Beloved.”  Do you want to know how much He loves you? Just look at the picture.

The Problem is Sin, The Answer is Jesus

My back hurts. Low and on the left side. I “googled” my symptoms and found out that I may have endometriosis, kidney stones, IBS, sciatica, muscle weakness, muscle imbalance, and muscle strain. These are due to how I sit, how I stand, how I sleep, how strenuously I work out (bwahahaha), and how I twist my back when I swing a golf club. No, I don’t play golf, but I’m looking for any excuse here because I know what’s really wrong with my back – it’s my front. It’s all the excess girth sitting in my tummy area. I’m trying to lose weight, but then Reese’s made Peanut Butter Cups with potato chips.

When you and I look at the world and the horrible things that human beings do to one another we want to ask “Why?” The news broke yesterday of another tragic shooting that left many families grieving.  Immorality is being celebrated and paraded. Babies are murdered in what should be the safest place on earth – their mother’s womb.  I shake my head and wonder, “Why?” Even in my own life, when I do things I know I should not do, I look in the mirror and ask myself the same question. I suspect you do too.

But I know why, and so do you. Sin. Sin opened the door wide for all these evil things to become part of the human story – part of me and part of you. Sin breeds hate and greed and selfishness and lust and every manner of evil. It is the curse of rebellion against God. When Adam and Eve bit the fruit, mankind was doomed to live in enmity with God, condemned by the sinful nature that has invaded every person for all time. Except one. In Romans 7, Paul lamented that sinful part of himself. He also asked a question – but it wasn’t “Why?” He knew why. “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (v. 18). He asked instead, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (v. 24). And then he answered his own question: “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25) Jesus Christ changes everything. He breaks the curse of sin and He transforms our hearts so that redemption – not sin – is our forever story.

Beloved, you were born a sinful creature, but God sent His one and only Son to set you free. You know what the problem is, and now you know the answer. Won’t you come to Jesus today?

Somebody is Listening

I am wearing an old green t-shirt this morning that Joy always liked. It reminds me of the days when she was learning colors and she would always point out that “Nana’s shirt is green.” She was so proud of herself for it, and of course, so was I. God has been nudging me about the example I am before her. For instance, the image that accompanies this devotional. Before covid, I taught a weekly Bible study for the women on the campus where I work. My daughter-in-law would come and of course, Joy came with us. She was just starting to cruise and would move from person to person around the chairs that kept her corralled. She stopped at my knee that morning and was listening intently to me teach.  Her mommy snapped the picture and it serves as a constant reminder that she always is watching me and learning from me – whether I am intentionally teaching her or not. That’s a huge responsibility, one I don’t take lightly.

The Lord pressed that point home to the Israelites when Moses taught them God’s Law and how important their daily lives were. He told them: “The [these words] to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut 11:19). In other words, in everything you do all throughout your day, be a walking, talking, living, breathing testimony to the Lord God.

What happens when we don’t? When the Jews returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity and resettled the city, Nehemiah discovered that “half of their children spoke . . . the languages of other people and did not know how to speak the language of Judah” (Neh 13:24). Sound familiar? And I’m not talking about linguistics – I’m talking about the language of truth, righteousness, and holiness. The language of God. The children didn’t know the language of Judah because the generations before them fell into speaking the languages around them so that they might fit in. Again – sound familiar?

This is not just a parenting/grandparenting message. The same applies to the church’s influence – or lack thereof – on the culture. We cannot represent Christ to the world if we sound just like them. Everything about us should speak Jesus. Because, like Joy, someone is watching and listening – whether you realize it or not. Beloved, what are they seeing and hearing in you?