This truth is so amazing! One day, God sent His beloved Son to come to earth. Our finite minds cannot comprehend the reality that He came willingly. Jesus became our Emmanuel, lived in poverty as one of us, walked the dusty roads, worked with His hands, and learned obedience. Our God in human flesh reached out, touched the unclean, and sat with sinners. He felt the brutality of beatings, the scathing scorn of His enemies, and the intense shame of the cross. Jesus, the Son of God and yet the Son of Man, felt real temptation just as we do but remained faithful and obedient to His Father!

Worship is powerful. Everyone worships something and what we worship changes us. Moses, for example, worshiped in the presence of God and his countenance was altered for everyone to see. Worship also affects those around us. Elijah’s prayer of petition and worship to the true God, changed the people present on Mt. Carmel that day. Paul and Silas worshipped in prison amidst a painful and desperate situation. Their worship changed not only the life of the jailor, but those of his entire family.

“Just be patient” is hard to hear, especially when it involves something for which you’ve waited a long time. It’s not always easy to wait. We like to quickly receive answers to our questions and problems. Imagine Simeon and Anna as they waited their whole life to see the promised Messiah before their faith finally became sight.

Resting on the hillside, watching their sheep, the lowly Shepherds expected no glorious proclamation that night. They, the least of society, had no reason to anticipate things would change. It is amazing that our Holy God chose them to be the recipients of the glorious news. These men in a moment were raised from simple shepherds to honored worshipers of God’s Son. Even throughout His ministry, Jesus reached down to the lowly, the marred, the broken – never leaving them in their plight but offering hope and raising them up! This message is beautiful!

We sing “Silent night, Holy night” but the first Christmas probably didn't feel holy or calm. Jesus was born in a barn to average parents, under an oppressive and barbaric government and power-hungry religious leaders. But Scripture says, in God’s chosen time He sent His Son (Gal. 4:4). The Father planned all these disruptions to unite all creation to Himself through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10).

“I will dwell in them, and walk in them” (II Cor 6:16). What a promise! We’re not just placed in the world and told to “figure it out.” He has set His Holy Spirit to live in us saying “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

What does the promise of Emmanuel mean to us in the twenty-first century? We know that Jesus' birth was a direct fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. However, if we only view it through the eyes of Jewish prophecy, we miss the full meaning of this incredible promise. We will miss what Emmanuel means to us.

What comes to mind when you hear the word promise? Is it broken and unfulfilled promises? Or sweet memories of promises kept? However you view promises, God’s promises are always sure. God never makes a promise that He will forget or neglect. Never.

We cannot begin to comprehend a world without brokenness and suffering. No one can escape receiving physical pain, emotional distress, or spiritual wounds. However, Jesus came from a place so perfect that He knew no pain at all. He left it all to come down to this broken world in which He truly suffered as you and I do. He felt the sting of rejection from His own people (John 1:11-13). He suffered exhaustion and would get alone for rest and time with His Father. His body was beaten, broken and hung on a cross for the salvation of the world. He wept tears of sorrow.

After forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted when Satan came to tempt Him. Yet, the Bible tells us in Matthew 4 that Jesus rebuked Satan and didn’t give in to the temptation. Instead, He remained holy. Hebrews 5 says that even though He was the Son of God, Jesus in His humanity learned obedience through His temptation (suffering). Thus He was made the perfect source of our salvation.

Exhausted and hungry from His forty days of temptation, Jesus exited the wilderness to face Satan again. The physical temptation was real for He was hungry. The emotional appeal was real, as Satan questioned His Deity challenging Him to prove it. The spiritual temptation was strong for the cross loomed ahead. Was there an easier way?

In Philippians 2, Paul gives us a picture of Christ in the flesh that is compelling, humbling, and perplexing. The Philippian passage states several issues that Jesus learned that are common for humans - obedience, suffering, poverty, and humility. By taking on human flesh, Jesus faced human struggles as a man (temptation and the Garden) and not as God. Scriptures tell us that He learned obedience even though He was God’s Son (Heb. 5:8). By learning obedience, Jesus became perfect and the author of eternal life (Heb. 5:9).

John declared at the beginning of his gospel, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Matthew says the Word was Emmanuel—God with us. What better way to be among us than to become one of us? Therefore, God the Son laid aside His splendor and the glory of His Godship to take on human flesh.

Throughout history God revealed himself through fire, prophets, and heavenly voices. But to us, He is revealed in the form of a baby (Hebrews 1:1-3).