Meditation

08/03/2021

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.’” (Isaiah 7:14)

Beloved, God constantly uses signs to reveal His intentions. Here He employed the most complete sigh of communication ever: “The birth of a son, whose very name revealed God’s intention for His children; Immanuel, God with us.”

“Virgin” (Hebrew ‘almah) may mean a young woman of marriageable age or a virgin. There is no doubt about which way Matthew saw this term and its prophecy. He applied them to the virgin birth of Jesus by using a specific term (Greek – parthenos) for virgin. People always see promise in the birth of a child. All the world is blessed in the birth of the child Jesus, who is Immanuel.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY:

Precious Abba, people always seem to want a sign from You, yet even when You give us one, we seem to want to interpret it for you! You have us the prophecy of the virgin birth, You have referred to the One who is coming, You have have said, “This is My Son, listen to Him. It is very much past the time for signs, miracles and wonders. Jesus is the Son of God, He was born of a virgin named Mary, and He preached, taught, healed and disposed of demons that only He could do, and still people say we need a sigh! Beloved, it is now time for each and every one of us to claim Jesus for Who is He, He is Immanuel, God is with us!. It is He that is our mediator between us and Almighty God. When we pray, we must call out to Jesus to seek forgiveness for our sins, and direction in our lives. It is in Christ Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen

THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

“Everyone you meet will live forever, the question is where?”

KNOWING GOD:

“I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture; the place will throng with people. One who breaks open the way will go up before hem; they will break through the gate and go out. Their king will pass through before them, the Lord at their head.” (Micah 2:12-13)

The One who creates is always leading the way to redemption and deliverance. God is always leading the way to redemption and deliverance. God promised to gather up those who were left, guide them with the care of a shepherd, and lead them into freedom and new hope.

God’s blessings continually flow toward His people. In the most difficult circumstances, Go cares for His people and delivers them from bondage. He refuses to let human sin thwart His purpose of gathering a covenant people.

I AM:

“And he said to me, ‘Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.: So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.’ (Ezekiel 3:1-3)

Ezekiel’s commission to proclaim God’s word took concrete form. Symbolic actions normally displayed God’s message concretely to the nation. The one was for the prophet’s personal benefit. For he dedicated proclaimer of the word, God’s message can be sweet, thus the reference, “sweet as honey.”

SECOND THOUGHT of the DAY:

“Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day and I, too, and working.’ For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:17-19)

This calls for a little step back to explain the position of the Jews at the time Jesus had said this. Jesus’ identification of Himself with God appeared blasphemous to the the Jews because by this time they clearly perceived that there is only one God. A major problem of the Old Testament was the people’s tendency to worship other gods, compromising the uniqueness of he one true God. The learned their lesson well in captivity and now reacted sharply in defense of the one God. So, their seemingly sharp reaction came from their own backgrounds of worshiping other gods. Hope that’s clear.

Jesus is the means through which God is revealed and works. Since God never rests from doing good,, the Son never stops doing good. God revealed His own character through Jesus’ action and words.