12/25/14 – “IMMANUEL – GOD WITH US”

Matt. 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

One of the greatest reasons that Jesus Christ came to earth was to remove the enmity that stood between God and man, and to open the door to us so we could be reunited with God in an intimate relationship with Him. Far too many believers are not walking in the fullness of what Christ has done for them. Many Christians know about God, but they don’t really know God. Jesus Himself in Matthew 7:23 revealed that there are those who will come to Him and say they did many mighty works in His name, yet He said to depart from Him, for He did not know them. Even though God knows all about us, that does not mean He knows us. For God to know us, we must get to know Him.

When Adam sinned in the garden the very intimate fellowship He had with God was broken. Man no longer had the ability to have the type of relationship Adam had, being filled with the presence of God. God had told Adam in the day that he sinned he would surely die. To die means to be separated from life, and God is that life. So the separation of God and man took place. God had created us walk as one with Him and to have fellowship with one another, to get to know each other. Through Jesus Christ we can do more than just know about God, we can once again know Him personally, for God is once again with us.

2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Cor. 5:18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
2 Cor. 5:19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

When you become born again you become brand new on the inside. Your spirit is once again reunited with the Spirit of God. This is what reconciliation is all about. The word “reconciled” means to call back into union with, to restore a friendship. We have been reconciled to God. We are once again brought back into union with God, and the door is now wide open for us to develop an intimate friendship with Him.

We can know Him and He can know us. If we don’t learn how to develop this relationship with God, we are missing out on what is the most important part of why Jesus came. God is and has always wanted relationship with man. The sin that stood between us has been taken out of the way as our spirit man was made new. So let’s take a look at three very important things needed for us to develop our relationship with God.

Jer. 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jer. 29:12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
Jer. 29:13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

1. SEEK HIM WITH ALL YOUR HEART

Many Christians have heard Jeremiah 29:11, but the two verses that follow go right along with what God is saying to us in verse 11. God has thoughts about us and those thoughts are of the future He has planned for us, and they are plans filled with hope and the peace of God. But notice in verse 12 He tells us that because of these plans we should call upon Him, go and pray to Him, and He will be there to fellowship with us. When we seek Him with all our heart we will find Him. To seek God with all your heart means He is your priority in life.

When God becomes your priority you think about Him everyday. You take time to fellowship with Him and He becomes the most important part of your life. You don’t budget God into your time, you budget your time around God. When He becomes this important to you, then you are on the way to developing a close walk with Him. This is the reason the devil has created so many distractions in life. He works constantly to get us distracted and focused on other things, but when you seek God with all your heart, keeping Him as the priority in your life, you will find Him.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

2. GET TO KNOW HIM THORUGH HIS WORD

God and His Word are one. The Word became flesh in the form of Christ and walked among us. If you want to get to know God you do so through reading, meditating, studying, and living in obedience to His Word. Smith Wigglesworth, who was a man who truly knew His God declared that he could not come to know God through his experiences, feelings, or other means, but only through His Word. We must read, meditate on, study, and obey the Word of God.

When we take time to read the Word of God as an act of our fellowship with Him, He will speak to us through His Word. As you meditate on scripture you come to know and see things about God you would not have seen. Through study of the scriptures you learn about His very nature and how He sees things. When we act in line with the Word we are walking in the light as He is in the light, which is another way we fellowship with God. As 1 John 1:6-7 tells us if we walk in darkness (opposed to God’s Word) and say we have fellowship with Him we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light (His Word) as He is in the light we do have fellowship with God. So take time to get to know God through His Word for He and His Word are one.

Luke 5:16 But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.

3. DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT PRAYER LIFE

Last but not least is learning to develop a consistent prayer life. Prayer is two-way communication with God. Prayer for most believers is a one-way conversation of them asking God for what they need. Thank God we can come to Him and present our needs unto the Father, but prayer is far more than just asking God for things we need. Jesus as our example clearly spent time in prayer with the Father. This is how He maintained close fellowship with the Father while here on earth. Prayer is not something that comes natural to us because of the fallen nature of the flesh and that is why we must learn to develop a prayer life.

One of the most effective ways to pray is praying in the Spirit. Once you are baptized in the Holy Spirit we can then yield ourselves to the Spirit of God within and pray in this heavenly language in which we are told in 1 Corinthians 14:2 that we are not praying unto men but unto God. Later on in verse 14 of this same chapter we are told that when we pray in tongues it is not our natural man that prays, but our spirit that is praying as the Holy Spirit is giving us the utterance. Praying in this heavenly language immediately engages your spirit with God through the Holy Spirit.

We are told in Romans 8 that the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit. God does not bear witness with our minds, nor our bodies, but our spirit man. Developing a prayer life of praying in the Spirit will help us to become more aware of our spirit man, and help us to quite our minds so we can hear from God. It is one of the keys to us developing a close relationship with God.

So remember one of the most important reasons Jesus came was to allow God once again to be with us and us with Him. God created us to fellowship with Him and to develop a close and intimate relationship so that we could not just know about God, but really know God. Know what He thinks, what He sees, and what He knows. When we do we can experience the plans He has for us, which are plans of peace and not evil, plans that involve a future filled with hope and the goodness of God. Make sure He is the priority of your life, stay in love with His Word, and keep developing in your prayer life with Him. As you do then you will get to experience the truth found in Immanuel – God with us!

Keep “Walking In The Word”

May God’s Best Be Yours!

Pastor Darryl Baker