Category: Immanuel Series

Exodus 25:8

Have the people of Israel build me a holy sanctuary so I can live among them.

As we fast forward in Exodus, Moses has led the people out of slavery in Egypt at God’s command. They are now in the desert working their way (slowly!) to the Promised Land. Imagine about a million people in a giant tent city in the desert — and God wants to join the camp out. In another Immanuel moment, God asks his people to build a Tabernacle (literally “tent”) so that he can dwell with them.

Here’s your freedom for today: God wants to participate in your life.

In this moment in Israel’s history, they are not living the glamorous life. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to live in ongoing temporary housing for 40 years. That does not stop God. He wants to participate with them in their journey, and he designs an elaborate tent for himself to do just that. When his people are more situated (much later on), God has a more permanent Temple in which he can dwell with his people. Wherever you find yourself at this moment in life, God wants to dwell with you. He is interested in joining you, and Jesus made it possible for God to “tabernacle” inside of you. Have you invited God to make his home in your heart?

Exodus 3:1-6

One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

“Here I am!” Moses replied.

“Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father —the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Our study of Immanuel takes us to another story in the Old Testament in which God came to be with his people in a unique way. You can read Moses’ backstory in the first two chapters of Exodus, but in today’s passage he is in the wilderness tending sheep. This is far from his home and his upbringing in Egypt’s palaces. Even that home had been a displacement from his true identity as a Hebrew, enslaved to the Egyptians. Notice Moses’ response to his God-with-us moment: “Here I am!” He made a choice to enter in with God, but he could only get so close.

Here’s your freedom for today: God has made a way to be fully with you.

Here in the Old Testament, there was always a distance despite how much God made efforts to dwell with his people. He shows up here to Moses, but there is a separation. “Don’t get too close!” is the unfortunate message. The Jewish people never ever pronounced God’s name fully aloud, nevermind stand face to face with him. The heartbreak of that distance reminds us of our desperate need for the Holy Spirit. Through Jesus, we now have full access to God as the Holy Spirit dwells within us. If you want to know more about this, read the book of Acts (you can re-read the Freedom For Today series on Luke and Acts to go more in-depth). We are no longer living in a pre-Jesus world, and for that make time today to be thankful.

Genesis 17:4-8

“This is my covenant with you: I will make you the father of a multitude of nations! What’s more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram. Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them! I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”

The book of Genesis feels a bit like trial-and-error as humanity wrestles with the devastation of sin in the world. God has a “Let’s wipe the slate clean” moment with Noah (Genesis 6), but it is literally moments after the flood waters recede that Noah degrades himself. Again, God is not about to walk away from humanity. As we see here in today’s passage, he’s taking a new step and making a covenant (or supernatural promise) with Abraham. He’s locking himself in to humanity for the long-haul, a truth that we can cling to if we ever wonder whether God will simply abandon us to the darkness.

Here’s your freedom for today: God is committed to us for eternity.

Even marriage, one of the most sacred types of human vows, isn’t eternal. We only promise “until death parts us.” When God makes a promise, he uses the word “forever.” He’s outside of time and not limited by it. When he says he’s promising a land to his people forever, he means that it has eternal value. God is inherently faithful — when he gives his word there is no going back. Why would he bother to make such a promise? Because his very nature is love in ways we can’t even comprehend. God finds us worth his time. God finds you worth his time. He’s made a promise to bring us into a land far greater than what we have seen, and we can follow him straight into that Promised Land.

Genesis 3:1-10

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied.  “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman.  “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. ⁷At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. ⁹Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

Some decisions that take a half-second to make have long-term consequences. This passage in Genesis 3 reminds us that a tiny mistake can cost a whole lot, and we are all reaping the consequences of sin that was invited into the world by Adam and Eve. As we consider our theme of “God with us,” we see here the original intention of God dwelling in and with his creation. He walked freely in the Garden with Adam and Eve. Imagine a world in which God is your actual neighbor — this is a picture of how life is supposed to be.

Here’s your freedom for today: God wants to walk with you every day.

God’s design is to live with us. Everything about the mission of Jesus ties back to that reality. God could not allow imperfection in his kingdom, so Adam and Eve could not remain in the Garden with him. Notice that God did not abandon them in the Garden, never to speak to them again. Instead, he removed them from the Garden in order to maintain his perfect world that it might one day be restored. Jesus came to be “Immanuel” in order to create a door back to that world. “Come, walk with God!” That is his invitation today. How will you respond?

John 1:1-5

“In the beginning the Word already existed.
    The Word was with God,
    and the Word was God.
He existed in the beginning with God.
God created everything through him,
    and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

The Wise Men were interesting figures in the coming of Jesus. These star-gazers were the first non-Jews to truly encounter Jesus, and they represent the coming of the Good News to the whole world. In the context of the Old Testament, we see that God has sought to appear and dwell with us since creation. The creation story, reflected in today’s passage of John, shows that Jesus has been present since the very beginning.

Here’s your freedom for today: Jesus has come to give us life.

Let’s pause on that word: life. Take a minute to think about the things that bring you to life — what truly rejuvenates your soul? Jesus brings that kind of soul-revival in an eternal and supernatural way. He is able to do this because he is the manifestation of the voice of God. He was made manifest on earth in the spoken words of creation and he presented himself in the form of a baby thousands of years later. He brings us life and shines light in the world. There is no uncertainty about the darkness of this world, and it is clear in the Bible that only the light of Jesus has the power to permeate this darkness. Ask Jesus to fill you with light and life today.