Made for This
Do you realize that you were purposefully, lovingly, and carefully designed by God?
King David said it like this:
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
Psalm 139:13-14 ESV
Your eyes, brain, heart, muscles, nerves, fingernails, eyelashes, smile, everything.
Not only are you wonderfully complex, but you were also planned before life as we know it existed by your Heavenly Father.
Even as you read these words, your body is doing some incredible things—without your conscious consent. Your fingers are scrolling, your eyes are capturing, your brain is processing …
All the while, your heart is pumping blood, your lungs are managing breath, your eyelids are blinking away dryness, your blood cells are multiplying by the second, your brain is directing your body while simultaneously storing memory—and so much more.
David also points out in other portions of Psalm 139 that God knows everything about us, His presence is inescapable, and He thinks about us so much that such thoughts cannot be numbered.
The point? You are uniquely and intentionally created by God to love Him and the people around you—to know Him, and make Him known.
So, be encouraged. You were made for this.
Luke 10
“After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you: and heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But into ...
God Is With You
The prophet Isaiah wrote the words of Isaiah 7:14 nearly 600 years before Jesus was born. At the time of this writing, the Israelites were doing all the right religious things, but weren’t practicing justice as God commands. Like many prophets during Isaiah’s time, this was a warning against that injustice. But among that warning was a glimmer of hope that God would set things right.
Here, the prophet Isaiah is giving the people of Israel a reason to hope because of God’s good promise—the promise that He will provide a sign and He will show up for us. Because that’s what Immanuel means: God with us.
But what does “God with us” mean for us today?
It means we can share in that hope by fixing our eyes on Jesus and trusting in Him. We can trust that from Christ’s birth to His current reign in Heaven—Jesus is God with us.
He’s with us in our pain when we lose a loved one.
He’s with us in our anger when we see injustice and don’t know where to turn.
He’s with us ...