“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel,’
which means ‘God is with us.'” Matthew 1:23 (NLT)
The name Immanuel speaks of a personal Savior who laid aside the splendors of heaven, coming to this broken, sinful world to fellowship on a personal level with humanity. God sent His angels but men rebelled against Him. He sent prophets, but the world did not heed them. He sent His Spirit upon certain judges and prophets but the Israelites failed to stay true to God. So God sent His beloved Son, Jesus.
Jesus – Immanuel – God with us. Not just for a time, not simply when we need His help, but a God who walks beside us every second of every day. We don’t need a God who overpowers us and dictates our every move. We don’t need a Creator who distances Himself from His creations, leaving humanity to fumble about here on earth. We don’t need an impassive God who shrugs at our antics nor a God who destroys His creations the instant they object to His will.
We need a God who stays right beside us through the good and the bad, in every blessing and every heartache, through every season and in every second of every day, through every valley, and on every mountain top. We need a God who fights for us, who shows His strength when we’re in the midst of a battle, who isn’t stingy but pours out His mercies and His grace upon us every morning, who fills our laps with good things and advocates for us before the throne of God. But most of all, we need a God who forgives our sins and wipes the slate clean, who restores our fellowship with God and offers us eternal life.
Immanuel – God’s answer to the lonely, the outcast, the shunned, the rejected, the ostracized. Immanuel – God’s promise that we will never be alone. Immanuel – God before us, behind us, beside us, within us – it doesn’t get any more personal than that.
Thought: “If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: ‘God with us.’” – John F. MacArthur