January 12, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The angel of the Lord persuaded Joseph saying, ‘She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel‘ (which means “God with us”).‘” (Matthew 1.21-23)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

I remember that on the first day of the classes I taught, I laid out the paradigm of how the class environment would be known by. It started out with this simple statement: In this classroom, you are not asked to earn my trust, respect nor goodwill. In this classroom, you are given my trust, respect and goodwill. What you have is the opportunity to receive it or earn my mistrust, my disrespect (which is actually disrespecting yourself) or negative consequences for poor choices and bad behavior which generally will be reflected in grades and visits to the office. From there, we went through the exercise of creating our own class rules in which, by consensus, were designed by both the students and myself (some basic school rules had to apply). It was interesting to watch as the students themselves took ownership of classroom behavior, the monitoring of such between themselves as well as their success in the mastering of the subject taught there. Most generally, students want to learn and excel. They would do it, and will still, in a safe and caring environment where behavior, thoughts and achievement were honored equally.

Mighty ones, for me this classroom culture and climate proposal arose from my understanding of the very truth of God’s love for us. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love nor His forgiveness. This is a proven reality made known clearly to us through His gift of Jesus who is the Christ, our one true Lord and Savior, Messiah and friend all bound up in one identity. That identity, as it was revealed to Joseph, was named “Immanuel, God with us.” Jesus came into the world to redefine and recreate the spiritual culture and climate intended for God’s people. When the angel appeared to the shepherds in the pastures outside of Bethlehem in the early morning hours on the first day of the week just before dawn, he declared “Unto you is born this day, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, and this is good news of a great joy for ALL people.” It was evident, or should have been evident, that God knew what everyone else should have known: humanity cannot save itself from the penalty of sin which is eternal death, that is, dying forever and never dying. What a horrible consequence for those whom God declared in their coming to life “you are good and very good.” Imagine that! Before we were born, God knew us and blessed us with the very presence of His thought and desire for us to have life and have it abundantly. In the moment, even before our human conception, God was with us, Immanuel. He knew we would stumble, fall short and crave sinful things even before we took our first breath, had our first life sensation and before our heart and brain connected and became as one. Yet, He extended His love and mercy to us in the waters of life by His Holy Spirit. We could do nothing on our own but live. There was nothing we could do to earn His favor, His trust, His respect, His goodwill. He gave it of His own freewill. His gift was unconditional. He had no other choice but to do so because God is love.

It did not mean there were to be no consequences for our wrong behavior, acting out on flawed thinking simply to please ourselves or to validate ourselves and daring to think there was another way to “live forever” and escape the ultimate penalty for doing so. It did mean that God gave us the freedom to choose and choice for Himself to be Immanuel, God with us…in thick and thin, good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in joy or depression, in lostness and in being found. In Jesus, humanity experienced the true culture and climate of life as it was meant to be not by saying it or promising it but by doing it and being it. This is the truth, beauty and reality of Immanuel. And the truth of the matter is that because of this promise to “go with us” even when we go through the various valleys where death of one kind or another loom over us, we are modeled the kind of life we are to live for and with others. We are called to “follow Jesus.” It does not mean to follow Him as if He will do all things for us. No, that would deny the goodness, purposefulness and meaning of our own lives as created by God (regardless of the means or reason for conception!) Instead, the call for us to follow the ONLY “way, truth and life” example that succeeds means to put the lessons that He taught into practice by loving God, loving self, loving the neighbor, loving the enemy and loving one another. We are to do so in the measure by which we ourselves are loved by God. We become like Immanuel for others as our lives speak to His presence as our presence. I did not say we would get it perfectly. Thank God for mercy and grace as the blessings of His forgiveness. But, we are given the opportunity and the resource to pursue perfection in this one area and thus “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” How can we rise to that seemingly impossible standard? By practicing and extending forgiveness and put into motion the reality of loving as God has loved us. We cannot do all things. It is impossible. We cannot even save ourselves; only God can do that and has done it with Jesus Christ for all those who will believe in Him as their personal Lord and Savior. But, we can practice the presence of God by remembering that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us that we might return to the being of righteousness as we were always meant to be.” For far too many, this is the road less travelled. Let us travel it ourselves and invite others to join us along the way so they might know “the joy and good news which is for all people.“

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.