GOD WITH US

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 1:23 (NASB77) ²³ ” Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, ” God with us.”

When Adam walked in the cool of the evening with God he was demonstrating our first nature which is to be holy and sinless in the presence of the godhead itself. Adam fell and as our natural father, we have also fallen and it is now second nature to violate God’s simple laws. The wealth of His blessings wasted away and mankind slipped into a poverty of soul that was not devoid of Jesus. As our pre-incarnate hero, He found us when we were lost and joined us in our employment, in its most humble condition. He resides in both our joys and sorrows as we see fellowship with the saints in prison. No place is too lonely and full of weeping that a song of praise will not cure because He inhabits His praises and dwells in all our song and merriment.

How blessed it is to know that even in the midst of our “bottom of bottoms”, he is there!

We all agree that He is all knowing, all powerful and all present. This means that even in the course of our most evil act, He knew we would do it before we knew we would do it. He empowered us to do the evil deed. And He was there and could have stopped us anything He wanted and didn’t. Hold on now, we were in His will!

Now understand there is His perfect will and His permissive will. When we have repented of our sins and are engaged in the business of the Lord, we are in His perfect will. But when we are obstinate and stubborn, he withdraws the protection of His Holy Spirit and lets Satan have a go at us as He did Job. This is His permissive will similar to the backside of a Persian rug: all knots and tangles.

Both conditions are in His will.

We both will be astonished at His genius in forming us to His chosen perfection when we step into the other side. All that we have been through has exactly orchestrated to display us in glory as a symphony of His creation. A caterpillar turned into a butterfly. How all creation of angels in heaven and demons in hell will be in awe of us as we have been passed through the test of time and nature to return to our rightful place, walking once again this time with dam and all the saints of the past who were tried and tested as we had been.