scripture and prayer reflection
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Lyrics
You've come to bring peace
To be love, to be nearer to us
You've come to bring life
To be light, to shine brighter in us
Oh Emmanuel
God with us
Our Deliverer, You are Savior
In Your presence we find our strength
Over everything, our redemption
God with us, You are God with us
You've come to be hope
To this world, for Your honor and name
You've come to take sin
To bear shame and to conquer the grave
Oh Emmanuel
God with us
Our Deliverer, You are Savior
In Your presence we find our strength
Over everything, our redemption
God with us, You are God with us
You are here, You are holy
We are standing in Your glory
Our Deliverer, You are Savior
In Your presence we find our strength
Over everything, our redemption
God with us, You are God with us
Philippians 2:4-8
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Isaiah 42:1-9
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.
5 Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
6 “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
7 to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8 I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.”
Reflection
For those who have grown up in church, the idea of God coming to us can become so familiar as to be almost empty and meaningless - a phrase of words we use automatically. Of course He came. Of course He loves us. We become so used to these foundational concepts that we run the risk of becoming numb to their potency, their reality.
But there really isn’t any “of course”. God didn’t have to love us. He certainly doesn’t need anything from us. Even the best of what we give Him falls immensely short of what He is worthy of. He could have scrapped all of creation before it even began, knowing where it was heading. He could have destroyed it all at the Fall, or with the flood, or at countless other times along the way.
Neither did He have to rescue us. He could have just left us to our own self-imposed doom, far off and detached from our plight. It was, after all, what we earned by our own efforts. But instead He chose to draw near in the midst of our evil and our weakness, before there was even a hint of our returning any shred of His love (Rom 5:6-8). In fact, He went in with this plan all along, from the very beginning (Gen 3:15). He simply wanted to be with us, and He went to extreme lengths to secure that possibility.
And by giving us the Holy Spirit to dwell in and among His people, God continues to draw near to us rather than stand far off. He is intimately involved in our lives even today, from the largest overarching brushstrokes to the smallest of minute details. We get to live in the glory of God, with the foundation of our identity grounded in being His beloved child, a younger brother or sister to Christ.
Take a moment to reflect on what it meant for Christ to come to us. What did He give up by coming? What costs did He gladly embrace for your sake? What would change in your day to keep before you the idea that He is even now with you? Talk with God about what comes up.
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