SELECTIVE LISTENING

Two types of thoughts continuously vie for your attention. One says, “Yes, you can.” The other says, “No, you can’t.” One says, “God will help you.” The other lies, “God has left you.” One proclaims God’s strengths; the other lists your failures.

Here’s the great news: you select the voice you hear. Why give ear to pea-brains and scoffers when you can, with the same ear, listen to the voice of God?

Turn a deaf ear to the old voices. Open a wide eye to the new choices. The scripture says, “God’s power is very great for us who believe. That power is the same as the great strength God used to raise Christ from the dead and put him at his right side in the heavenly world” (Ephesians 1:19-20 NCV).

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!

SELECTIVE LISTENING