Immanuel, God With Us

Immanuel, God with Us

A Daily Devotional Counting Down 100 Days to Christmas

By Ron Barnard

Copyright

Copyright © 2014 by Ron Barnard

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2014

ISBN 978-1-312-44429-4

Produced by Leah Bussert

Illustrations by Greg Pampell

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV® Text Edition: 2011. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All Rights Reserved.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation  Used by permission.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2010 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.

Published by Ron Barnard

P.O. Box 3395 Wilmington, NC 28406

www.thesamnetwork.com

Dedication

To Mom and Dad:

Thanks for making Christmas special no matter what we had and for teaching me Immanuel is always with us.

Foreword

I have been married to Mr. Christmas, as Ron has been affectionately nicknamed, for 26 years.  In all honesty, he has at times overwhelmed me with his love of the Christmas season. I wouldn’t call myself a scrooge, but I’m certainly NOT Mrs. Christmas either. Over the years, however, I have learned to be thankful for the foundation of faith Ron has established in our home through his strongly held belief that God, Immanuel, is always with us. God desires to be near and intimately involved in our lives on the good days and the difficult days.  I believe He especially wants us to know He’s near on the days when we feel alone and empty.

The Christmas season can be difficult for a variety of reasons, the crazy schedules, expectations of others, or the emptiness created by the absence of those to whom we have had to say Goodbye.   These have been very real challenges that at times have made it hard for me to focus on the true meaning of the season.  I’m thankful for eternity. I’m also thankful we can anchor our hope in Immanuel knowing in the deepest part of our hearts that we can bring all our cares to Him, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).

This book is written in such a way that most of the devotionals are stand-alone readings.  Let it serve as an inspiration and resource.  It’s OK if you skip around. Show yourself some grace and focus your time more on meditating on the truth of what you read, rather than just trying to get through them all. 

Thank you for making the choice to pick up this book.  The fact that you are reading it represents to me an investment of time and money as well as a personal desire to invest in your own journey of faith.  I pray it will prove a good investment and that in these pages you will find hope, encouragement, and supernatural joy, as you embark on this and every future Christmas season.

Breathe in and breathe out, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Let this be a part of your journey toward learning what it means to walk out your faith with Immanuel. And remember, you never walk alone… 

-Karen Barnard

September

September 16th - 100 Days until Christmas

Matthew 1:23 (NIV) Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).

I originally started the Countdown to Christmas devotional as a daily blog. I wrote while traveling on mission both stateside and overseas in southern Africa. I wrote from home, sitting in coffee shops, airports, hotels, guesthouses, friend’s houses, and even in the African bush. Some of the devotions read a bit like a journal entry and were left as such because of the uniqueness of that day. Others were written in specific response to the day’s events or news. They are all meant as a not so subtle reminder of who Christmas is about.

I’ve long been known for counting down the days until Christmas to the joy of some and the polite annoyance of others. I know Christmas can be hectic and even heavy, especially if you’ve experienced crisis or tragedy.  It was this awareness and the personal tragedies of some of our special friends that caused me to write in the first place. Of course, it’s not so much Christmas that I wrote about, but rather the Christ of Christmas, Immanuel, God with us.

The perspectives shared are from a life lived in the reality of His faithfulness and presence. Like everyone else, I’ve experienced bad and good, hurt and healing, battle and blessing. I talk about them all in this daily discourse. What I’ve found to be true and what I testify to here, is that in all of that Immanuel is always with us. His presence is predetermined, not conditional. He’s with us when it’s good and He’s with us when it’s not. Granted, there are times when it’s more difficult to see or feel His nearness, but nonetheless He is here and He is near. The Word became flesh and walked among us. He still does. I will never leave you or forsake you

I have no issue with Christmas music, lights, trees or presents. In fact, I enjoy them all. But at the end of it Christmas is about one thing. Christmas is about a God who left heaven and came to earth. He came to redeem and deliver. He came to live and to ultimately die. In coming he overcame death and the grave. He paid sin’s price and broke sin’s curse. With less fanfare than we can imagine the King of creation entered this world so we could be delivered from it. He is Immanuel, God with us.

September 17th - Faithful in Battle

99 days until Christmas

Immanuel is God with us. Not God was with us, or will be with us, but has always been, and always will be with us. That's Faithfulness.

I'm not saying things always go the way we wish they would. In fact, they often don't. What I am saying is that even then God is faithful. It's His faithfulness to be with us that inspires and anchors our lives.

1 Corinthians 1:9 (NIV) God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

The Greek word for faithfulness is pistis {pis'-tis}, and is used to describe the quality of fidelity, or reliability. It is the character of one who can be relied on... (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). William Barclay calls it the virtue of reliability.

Lamentations 3:22 (NLT) The unfailing love of the LORD never ends. By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him.’ The LORD is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD.

God is faithful on so many levels. Certainly, He is faithful in battle. That’s good news since we face battles every day. The battles we face come in all shapes and sizes, some are external and some are internal. We face battles of the heart and battles of the mind, physical and spiritual.

Just so you know, you’re not the first to face a fight. Consider Gideon’s story, or maybe check with Joshua or Caleb. Paul could no doubt give a quick discourse on the consistency of being contested. You might also check with Jehoshaphat or a number of the other kings and prophets from the Bible who fought the good fight. But if you still need a witness, there’s always David.

David was only a boy when he faced and defeated the Philistine, yet even at his young age he was destined to be a victor and a king. Goliath wasn’t just a full size soldier. He was a giant! His breastplate weighed 125 pounds, and the tip of his spear weighed between 15-25 pounds. This giant of a man had haunted and taunted an army and a nation.

Yet we know that in 1 Samuel 17, God gave David one of the greatest upset victories in history. The minute David put his faith in God, Goliath became the underdog.

What giants are you facing today? What in your past or present haunts you? What trouble, trial, or challenge stands between you and your destiny?

Whatever the case, remember you don’t fight alone. Immanuel is God with us and He is faithful in battle.

September 18th - Faithful at Dead Ends

98 days until Christmas

Have you ever found yourself at a dead end? I’m a bit of a directional driver, which means I assume that a road pointed in the right direction will lead to my intended destination. Of course, not all roads go through. More than once I’ve ended up in a cul-de-sac or at the end of a street with no way out and I have to reverse or make a U-turn. Life has its own dead ends: relationships that went nowhere, big deals in business that didn’t go through, a career path or plan that didn’t work out, illness, hardship, or loss. These are difficult dead ends for sure!

The story of Moses reveals the presence and faithfulness of God at what could only be described as a journey with dead end after dead end. To begin with, Moses was born into captivity and at a time when Pharaoh had ordered the murder of every newborn Jewish boy. Pharaoh feared the Jews were becoming too numerous and would soon be a threat to their Egyptian overlords. Ironically, God not only delivered Moses from death, but into the house of the very man who had intended his destruction.

But the story doesn’t END there. I have a feeling Moses would say his situation went from bad, to good, to bad again. One hastily-made choice banished Moses from Pharaoh’s palace to the far side of the desert.

Exodus 2:11-12, 15 (NIV) One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand…When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

FYI, Midian would have been listed in Rand McNally under desert destinations. Talk about the proverbial dead end! I’m sure at this point Moses must have been thinking whatever good he could have done was undone! Of course, what Moses didn’t know was that God was at work on the very deliverance Pharaoh had feared. Moses found favor in Midian, and he found favor with God. How astonished Moses must have been when after a 40 year wait God spoke to him through a burning bush in the desert, revealing a process and plan for Moses’s restoration and his people’s deliverance. It turns out a dead end can be a great place to see and hear from God.

Exodus 3:9-10 (NIV) "The cries of the people of Israel have reached me, and I have seen how the Egyptians