God Kept His Promise

“Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men” (Genesis 33:1). Israel—the exhausted, God-struck patriarch—had no choice but to trust. He prostrated himself like a vassal before a royal in an ancient court. And all of a sudden “Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him,…and they wept” (Genesis 33:4).

They wept for relief. They wept with forgiveness. They wept at the possibility of a new start, a fresh beginning. Esau wept because his brother was home. Israel wept because he’d come face-to-face with his past, only to find that his past held no power over his life.

God had gone ahead of him. God had kept the promise he had made in Bethel. “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land” (Genesis 28:15). He will do the same with you my friend. God never gives up on you.

Devotion by Max Lucado | The Almighty Jehovah | https://thealmightyJehovah.com

What Gabriel Never Expected

Prior to Bethlehem God gave us his messengers, his teachers, his words. But in the manger God gave us himself. Extraordinary, don’t you think? I imagine even Gabriel scratched his head at the idea of “God with us.” Gabriel surely was not one to question his God-given missions. When God sent, Gabriel went.

And when word got out that God was to become a human, Gabriel was no doubt enthused. He could envision the moment: The Messiah in a blazing chariot. The King descending on a fiery cloud. An explosion of light from which the Messiah would emerge. What he never expected, however, was a slip of paper with a Nazarene address. “God will become a baby,” it read. “Tell the mother to name the child Jesus. And tell her not to be afraid.”

Gods With Us Promise

Jesus understands you. He’s faced hunger, sorrow, and death and wants to face them with you. The Bible says Jesus “understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

If Jesus understands our weaknesses, then so does God. Jesus was God in human form. He was God with us. That’s why Jesus is called Immanuel. Immanu means “with us.” El refers to Elohim, or God. So Immanuel is not an “above-us God” or a “somewhere-in-the-neighborhood God.” He came as the “with-us God.” All of us.

“I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Search for restrictions on the promise, and you’ll find none. There’s no withholding tax on God’s “with us” promise. God is with us. What great news!

God Kept His Promise