Moment to Moment (Bible blog)
Even when I go through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for you are with me… (Psalm 23:4)
Jesus, this is a crazy, messed up world.
But because you are Immanuel, I will not fear what this world fears. (Isaiah 8:12)
I will not worry about the things this world worries about. (Matthew 6:25-34)
I will not be consumed with anger the way this world is. (James 1:19-20)
Instead, I choose to trust and wait for you, my good Shepherd. (Isaiah 8:17)
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Yahweh, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:14, LSB)
Those words are well familiar to me. I’ve read and sung them many times. But today, I was focusing on that last line.
Who is God to me?
God is “Yahweh.” The eternal one. The only God. The incomparably awesome One, God over all creation.
And yet, he is not a God far away. He is Immanuel, God with me. My rock. My foundation. My refuge in the storm.
More, he is my Redeemer. Jesus shed his blood for me on the cross, buying me out of slavery to Satan’s kingdom and graciously bringing me into his kingdom.
That’s who God is to me.
That’s why I love him.
And that’s why I seek to please him, singing with David,
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight…
Who is God to you?
The fool says in his heart, “There’s no God.” (Psalm 14:1)
Father, I do acknowledge you exist.
But are there times I act as if you don’t?
Times I kind of put you to the side?
Times, instead, when I let my fears reign? My worries reign? Or worse, my sinful desires reign?
Are there times when I get so fixated on my own agenda that I lose sight of yours?
Jesus, I don’t want to act like a fool.
Help me to remember that you are Immanuel, God with me.
Give me a heart that seeks you moment to moment, day to day.
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.
For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.
He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. (Ephesians 1:3-6)
I love the translation of verse 6. God has “lavished” his grace on us.
The word translated “lavished” is used only one other time in the New Testament, when Gabriel visited Mary. Gabriel told her,
Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you.（Luke 1:28)
He was basically saying to her, “Mary, God has lavished his grace upon you.”
You may think that Mary must have been pretty special for the angel to say that to her.
And yet, God says the same thing to us.
“I have lavished my grace upon you through my Son. I chose you before the foundation of the world to be adopted into my family.”
The words God spoke to Mary are for you. God has lavished his grace on you. And in Jesus, he is Immanuel, “God with us.”
The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Moses was unable to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud rested on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34-35)
This being Christmas season, I couldn’t help but think of the story of the shepherds in Luke 2.
In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.
Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. (Luke 2:8-9)
The same glory that filled the tabernacle now shone around the shepherds.
No wonder the shepherds were terrified.
Even Moses wouldn’t enter the place where God’s glory shone.
And yet the angel said to the shepherds,
Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)
Through Jesus, the shepherds gained access to God that even Moses didn’t have. And so have we.
John tells us,
The Word (i.e. God) became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)
The word “dwelt” has the idea of “pitching one’s tent.”
In Jesus becoming human, God “pitched his tent” among us, just as God did for the Israelites.
Because he did, John tells us that,
We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14b)
And just as God was Immanuel to the Israelites, “throughout all the stages of their journey,” Jesus is Immanuel to us throughout all the stages of our journey through life, promising,
I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
“Now if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways, and I will know you, so that I may find favor with you. Now consider that this nation is your people.”
And he replied, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
“If your presence does not go,” Moses responded to him, “don’t make us go up from here.” (Exodus 33:13-15)
I was thinking this morning, “How often do I have Moses’ heart?”
“Father, I don’t even want to leave this house unless you go with me. If I have found favor with you, walk with me. Teach me your ways and I will know you so that I may find favor with you.”
The amazing thing is that God says to us, “I will do this very thing you have asked, for you have found favor with me, and I know you by name. My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:17, 14)
Ultimately, that’s what Christmas is about.
Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.
He not only walks with us and talks with us as he did with Moses, he reveals his glory to us, and we receive grace upon grace upon grace. (John 1:14, 16-18)
That’s awesome to ponder.
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and peace on earth to people he favors! (Luke 2:14)
For Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has plotted harm against you.
They say, ‘Let’s go up against Judah, terrorize it, and conquer it for ourselves. Then we can install Tabeel’s son as king in it.’
This is what the Lord God says: It will not happen; it will not occur. (Isaiah 7:5-7)
As I read that, I wondered: “How often do I worry about things that will never happen?”
I can remember times I have actually lost sleep worrying about things that never happened.
How much better is it to trust God? How much better to remember that he is with me.
Two thousand years ago, he gave me a sign of his presence. The sign came in the form of a baby, lying in a manger.
Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel. (14)
As Matthew points out, “Immanuel” means “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22-23)
It’s easy to criticize Ahaz for refusing to trust God. But how often do I fail to look at the sign he has given me and trust him?
Jesus you are always with me. You truly are Immanuel. So whenever I’m tempted to worry, help me to turn to you…and trust.
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:22-23)
I was just meditating on those final words: God with us.
With us.
Not far from us.
With us.
Not keeping his distance from us because we’re not worthy of his love.
With us.
Not giving up on us because of sins and failures.
With us.
Not constantly accusing us, but rather defending us.
With us.
Not abandoning us when the enemy attacks, but fighting for us.
With us.
Our God is with us.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
How often do we question God, “Are you really with me or not?”
That’s what the Israelites did with God in the desert.
And so for the first and only time in the Old Testament, God stands before the people to be tried.
Usually in a trial, the people would stand before God to be tried (Deuteronomy 19:17).
But this time, it is God who stands on the rock (possibly symbolized by the pillar of cloud) before Moses and the elders of Israel.
And there, since a cloud cannot be struck, the rock on which God stands is struck and he gave them water, proving to the people he was truly with them.
God didn’t deserve to be struck. The people did for their sin of disbelief. But God took the blow, and in doing so, gave them life.
According to Paul, that rock was a symbol of Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:4)
And over a thousand years later, in Jesus, God became a man and stood before men to be judged again.
Once again, he stood trial, not because of any sin of his, but because of the sins of the people.
There on the cross, he took the blow once more. And now through his blood shed on the cross, we have life.
What struggles are you going through now? Are you questioning if God is truly with you or not?
Look to the cross. Remember what he did there for you. And believe.
He is Immanuel.
He is “God with us.”
So let us sing as David did when remembering this incident.
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! (Psalm 95:1)
There are times when we feel totally alone. David did. (Psalm 142:4)
His words in the first two verses really strike me.
I cry aloud…
I plead aloud…
I pour out my complaint…
I reveal my trouble…
To whom did he do all these things?
To the Lord.
Alone as he felt, he was never truly alone.
And so David could say,
Although my spirit is weak within me,
you know my way. (Psalm 142:3)
And again,
I say, “You are my shelter,
my portion in the land of the living.” (Psalm 142:5)
Are you feeling alone right now? Abandoned?
Jesus knew what that was like. (Matthew 27:46)
Yet God didn’t abandon him to the prison of his grave. (Acts 2:25-32)
He won’t abandon you either.
So cry to him.
Plead with him.
Pour out your heart and reveal your troubles to him.
He will hear.
And he will raise you up.
Merry Christmas from Japan!
This morning I watched my five year old daughter open her presents, and as I think about the expression on her face as she did, I think about the opening words of an old song.
As little children, we would dream of Christmas morn,
And all the gifts and toys we knew we’d find.But we never realized a baby born one blessed night gave us the greatest gift of our lives. — David Meece
It was the night when the invisible God became visible, the night the unknown God became known and drew near to us.
And that’s one of the things that Paul wanted to let the Athenians know. They had made an altar for “The unknown God.”
And Paul told them, “He is no longer unknown. He has revealed himself to us. He is not one of many gods. He is the one who created this world and everything in it. He is the Lord of all and the giver of life. And he has done everything just as he has planned it.”
Why did God do all this?
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. (Acts 17:27a)
The good news as we seek him?
He is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:27b)
One of Jesus’ titles is “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.”
The good news of Christmas is that God drew near to us, and we can now know him, truly know him, and come into a close relationship with him through Jesus Christ.
As John put it,
No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (that is, Jesus), who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (John 1:18)
On that first Christmas day, God drew near to us.
This Christmas, let us draw near to him.
Here we have one of the most famous prophetic passages in the Bible. In this passage, God reveals to Nebuchadnezzar the future of his empire, as well as of the Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman empires.
Ultimately, God makes clear to Nebuchadnezzar that as great as these human empires might be, they would only be temporary, and could not compare to the kingdom that would come, God’s kingdom.
God’s kingdom would sweep away all other kingdoms and would stand forever.
But as interesting as this prophesy was, I find the words of Nebuchadnezzar’s astrologers in verse 11 even more interesting.
Nebuchadnezzar demanded that they not only interpret the dream he had, but that they tell him the dream itself. In that way, he could tell that their interpretation was true. The astrologers complained that they could not do it, saying,
There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer.
What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men. (10-11)
The Babylonians had many gods, but to the astrologers, they were inaccessible, at least to do what Nebuchadnezzar commanded them to do. “Our gods do not live among men,” they said.
But Daniel served a God who does walk among men. And when he heard of the king’s edict to kill all the wise men of Babylon, he asked for more time to seek God.
When God revealed the mystery and the dream to him, he worshiped God saying,
Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.
I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king. (Daniel 2:20-23)
The same God who walked with Daniel, walks with us as well. Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.”
So let us never think of God as one who is far away or inaccessible. But when we face problems and troubles in our lives, let us do as Daniel did: humble ourselves before him and seek his face.
And just as he was with Daniel, he will also be with us.
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 