Emmanuel, God With Us

“O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens…When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:1, 3, & 4)

Music is one of my most favorite things.  I seem to carry a song in my heart all the time and know I must be a descendant of the Tribe of Judah who were designated by God in the Old Testament as the tribe of praise and worshipers.  Often, when I am sitting in church and the pator is preaching, his words remind me of one song or chorus after another that I know.

Occasionally, a song comes out on the radio that touches my heart and impacts my life in a very strong way.  Once, when I was going through a difficult time, I kept hearing a song being played on the radio by Nicole C. Muellen called “My Redeemer Lives.”  One of the lines said, “And I know my Redeemer lives.”  Maybe it was just my imagination, but it just seemed like every time I got in the car and needed a word of encouragement, that song would be playing!  I would often burst into tears and thank God for sending me that word of encouragement at just that moment when I needed it most.  It was a constant reminder that no matter what was happening in my life at that moment, my Redeemer lived!

Recently, a new song has been playing on the radio that has permeated the very core of my being and I can’t get it out of my head or my heart.  I wake up singing it, I play it over and over again throughout the day, and it’s the last thing I listen to before I go to bed at night.  And it still reduces me to tears every single time I hear it.  It is recorded by a group called MercyMe and the name of the song is “Emmanuel, God With Us.”  Here are the words:

Who are we that You would be mindful of us?  What do
You see that’s worth looking our way? We are free
in ways that we never should be; sweet release from
the grip of these chains. Like hinges straining
from the weight, my heart no longer can keep from
singing.

[ chorus ]
All that is within me cries for You alone, be
glorified! Emmanuel, God with us! My heart sings a
brand new song. The debt is paid, these chains are
gone! Emmanuel, God with us.

Lord, You know our hearts don’t deserve Your glory!
Still You show a love we cannot afford. Like hinges
straining from the weight, my heart no longer can
keep from singing.  [ back to chorus ]

Such a tiny offering compared to Calvary;
nevertheless, we’ll lay it at your feet. [ back to chorus ]

You would have to hear the actual song to get its full impact — you can go to YouTube and search for MercyMe to find the video — but this one song seems to sum up the full and complete story of God’s love for each one of us and reminds me of how grateful I am for God’s love and my salvation.  God, in His infinite glory, does not have to give us a second thought!  He owes us nothing.  And yet He created us anyway, sent His son to this earth to show us an example of how to live and then he caused that very son — His one and only begotten son — to die for us a cruel death.  And because of the price He paid and because of our faith and belief in Jesus and His death, burial and resurrection, God has given us everything we will ever need to live our lives on this earth completely free from the burden of our sins!

It doesn’t get any better than that.  Not only does God love us, but He also paid the price for us that we might inherit eternal life and be able to receive everything God has to offer His children and those who love Him!  What peace and what joy fills my heart when I hear the line in the song that says, “My heart sings a brand new song. The debt is paid, these chains are gone!”  And I realize I do not have to do another thing to feel loved, to feel secure and to know my place on this earth is simply to praise Him for WHO He is and for WHAT He has done.  Emmanuel, God With Us!  We need never feel alone again when the reality of those words truly sinks into the very core of our being!  God be praised!

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Okay, some of you have been wondering where I’ve been!  Truth is, life has taken me on a year-long side trip and I completely forgot I even had this blog until the other day when I received an email notifying me that someone had commented on it.  I eagerly logged in to check it out and was COMPLETELY SHOCKED to see how long it had been since I’d added anything.  I made a promise to myself that I would try to do better…thus, why I’m here today!

This being the THANKSGIVING season, I want to share with you what happened to me today, which is a testimony to just how much God loves us and how faithful He is to His children!  Those who know me, know that I live a pretty simple life and I pretty much take things one DAY at a time and one DOLLAR at a time.  Until you get used to living that way, it can be a really scary experience.  But it can also be an exciting way to live because you have to trust God to provide and you never know what He will do or when He will do it!

Today, just like many other days, I started off with only a few dollars to my name.  There were still several days until the end of the month and getting paid again and things were looking pretty bleak.  To make matters worse, Thanksgiving was just a couple of days away.  I knew exactly how much money I had and what needed to be done with it, and I knew I needed to be very careful.  So I divided my money up: some had to go in the gas tank, some I was hoping to hold onto so I could enjoy lunch with a friend before a long holiday weekend stretch of staying at home, and the last of my precious dollars I needed to hold onto for those unexpected surprise ingredients I always seem to forget when fixing that dish I take for Thanksgiving every year!  Fortunately for me, I don’t have to cook the entire meal.  I get to go to my sister’s house — she’s a great cook — and I’m only expected to bring my one dish.  But I already knew I needed at least one item from the store, so I was holding tight to those last few dollars.

I had to make a trip to a nearby town, so I put just as much gas as I thought would get me there and back home in my gas tank.  I knew my trip would probably drain that gas right back out of my tank, but for the moment, all I had to do was get there and back.  Unfortunately, on the way home, my gas hand got pretty low and I did not have the faith to believe that God would get me home, so I had to stop and use a few more of my precious dollars to buy more gas.  My lunch with my friend was beginning to look doubtful, but I decided instead that I would take things one moment at a time and put off buying that one Thanksgiving ingredient and go to lunch.  Lunch for me is often a treat and one of the few things I actually do just for myself,  and I was in no mood to skip this one.  As I drove to meet my friend, I told myself, “Thanksgiving will just have to take care of itself!”

My friend and I enjoyed a good lunch, talking as fast as we could before she had to get back to work.  As I drove home, I was feeling really low.  When I pulled up to my mailbox, I had several pieces of junk mail and one item that looked much like a card.  I figured it was a Thanksgiving card from a family member, but when I looked at it closer, I didn’t recognize this particular handwriting.  Also, it felt like there was something in the card.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the card:  it was a CHRISTMAS card and not a Thanksgiving card….it was not signed by anyone…and inside was a WAL*MART GIFT CARD!!  I have no idea who my “angel” is, but I can’t tell you how my heart rejoiced when I saw that card!  The amount wasn’t large, BUT — and now hear me when I say this — it was just what I needed to buy just what I needed for that Thanskgiving dish and jut enough to put gas in my car to get me to my sister’s house on Thanksgiving day!

What can I say??  God is so good.  He is so faithful.  He loves us so much and He knows just what we need and exactly when we need it!  My heart immediately went from feeling low to jumping for joy as I praised God for His goodness, but most of all for HIS UNFAILING LOVE! 

I also was encouraged in my faith and knew yet once again that everything would be okay.  I would make it through this day and  I would make it through all my tomorrow’s because I have a Heavenly Father who loves me just that much.  Indeed, GREAT is His faithfulness.