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!

What is Love?

“…God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  (I John 4:16) 

Webster defines “love” as many things:  a strong affection, a warm attachment, a sexual attraction, a beloved person, an unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for others – oh, yes, and a tennis score!  Since I know absolutely nothing about tennis, I’m not even going to touch that one.

But when it comes to strong affection, warm attachment, or a beloved person, we all understand those kinds of love.  Most of us throw the word love around freely without even thinking about what it means.  “Oh, I just love pizza.”  Or, “I love to dance/read/garden, etc.”  Or how about, “I just love to go shopping!”

And, heaven knows, there is enough sexual attraction in the world today that we don’t even have to discuss that one!

But how many times do we use the word “love” because we have “unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for another person” or because our thoughts are “other-directed” instead of “self-directed”?  If we are honest, we will admit that most of the time when we’re throwing out the “L” word, we are thinking about ourselves and how good we feel.

The Bible says that “God is love.”  If we want to know what love really is, we need only look to God for our answer.  In Deuteronomy 7:9 the Bible says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of LOVE to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.”  God has a covenant with His people to love them, and He has been reaching out to love us since the beginning of time.  Everything God has ever done has been from a heart of love, but most of us see Him as a harsh God who is always punishing us.

John 3:16 says that ”God so LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  God LOVES us so much that He even sent His son to walk this earth and die a horrendous death and pay the price for our sin so that we might receive God’s love and His promise of eternal life.

There are so many scriptures talking about God’s love in the Bible it’s impossible to even begin touching on them in this small space.  If you want to really know what love is, my suggestion is that you look to God for your answer.  Ask Him to show you what love really is!  Ask him to come into your heart and reveal Himself to you personally!  And as you allow Him to teach you, I can promise you that you will come into a new understanding of what LOVE really is.  And as you begin to receive His love into your own life, you will begin to give His love to a world full of people who are looking for love in all the wrong places!

So, what is love?  God is love.  God is kind and merciful and gracious and giving.  He is selfless, not selfish.  I Corinthians 13 says that “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.”

And that is a true definition of God.  You could replace the words “it” and “love” with God in those verses, and you have a pretty good picture of who and what God is.  And the next time we are throwing out the word “love” without really knowing what we’re saying, perhaps we’ll stop and ask ourselves how many of those characteristics do we really possess?

God Loves You!

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!” (I John 3:1) 

As young children, we all grow up looking for love, affirmation, and a sense of purpose as to just who we are and why we exist.  For some, those things are found in parents who show us love and give us affirmations and encouragement and help us find our way as we grow up.  But for many, we grow up in broken homes or homes where a parent is an alcoholic or abusive, or we just have dysfunctional parents who never felt love when they were growing up, and, sadly, they don’t know how to pass love on to their own children.  Some of us are sexually abused as children and we grow up with a completely distorted perspective of who we are.  Eventually we get married and have children of our own and continue the cycle of not really knowing what it feels like to truly be loved.

In John 3:16, the Bible says, “For God so greatly LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.  “This verse is probably the most well-known and most often quoted scripture in the Bible, and it’s almost always equated with salvation.  But I remember one day when it occurred to me that God so greatly loved the world that He gave and He gave and He gave, and He has been giving since the very beginning of time.  God loved us so much that He created this earth, He created each and every one of us, and He wants nothing more than to love us, to have a relationship with each one of us, and to continue to pour His blessings out on us!  Unfortunately, for thousands of years mankind has been rejecting God’s love and the many good things God has planned for us.

Each of us needs to work on receiving the love God has for us.  The truth is that God loves YOU so very much.  He created you, He knows every hair on YOUR head, and every day of your life is numbered by Him.  He wants to be YOUR Heavenly father and He wants to pour His goodness, His grace, and His mercy on YOU each and every day.  All you have to do is receive His love, acknowledge that you have need of Him because you are a sinner walking on this earth, and ask Him to come into your life and take control.  It’s that simple.  If you will take that simple first step, He will show you just how much He loves you as you continue to walk with Him on a daily basis.  Don’t wait another minute or another day to make the most important decision you will ever make in your life.  And always remember, God loves you!