The New Year is just a few hours old, and I don’t know what this year holds for you and me, but I know Who holds this year. He is Immanuel, the God who is with us each step of the way. And since he is with us – behind us, in front of us, alongside us – he will fulfill each of his promises and accomplish all of his purposes—not the least of which is to conform us to the likeness of his Son. He is the unstoppable God, and making us more like Christ is his target – and he never misses. He will get us there looking a lot more like Jesus!
The Journey: Matthew 1:22-23
All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’”
For me, the launch of the New Year is always the opportunity to begin again. I’ve set new goals for myself, and today I continue the march toward that which God has called me: The transformation of my life into complete Christlikeness. Like the Apostle Paul, this will be my consuming passion this year:
Until Christ is formed in you! (Galatians 4:19)
One of those critical goals that will propel me forward toward Christlikeness is to have a “quiet time” with God every single day this year. I know of no more powerful and profound, yet simple key to Christian growth, spiritual health and life change than to read, meditate on, and pray over God’s Word. You cannot grow and you will not be “bless-able” without the intimate relationship with God that comes through his Word. It will not be apart from reading, memorizing, meditating, absorbing, obeying and loving God’s Word that God will truly take over Ray Noah in the next 365 days.
So I want to invite you to join me on this journey. I will be reading the Gospels four times this year—one chapter each day Monday through Friday. When I get through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I will return to Matthew and begin again.
So why the gospels, you ask? Well, if I am going to look more like Jesus this year, I figured spending time listening to his words, watching his life, and absorbing his ways couldn’t hurt. And what better way to do that than by saturating my life in his story, which is contained in these four gospels.
Now as you start off today’s reading in Matthew 1, you are immediately confronted with a list of names, which, for the most part, are meaningless to you. You may be tempted just to skip past these names, but I want to challenge you not to do that. You see, each name, just like in your own family history, tells a story. And that story reveals God’s activity in fulfilling his divine purpose to bring about the birth of his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not just suddenly appear in history without context—his birth was the result of God’s eternal plan.
Not only do these names show us how God was fulfilling his sovereign purpose, they show us how he was fulfilling his divine promise. Jesus was born as a result of a promise God had made hundreds of years before, first to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15), then to Abraham (Genesis 12:3) and to King David (I Chronicles 17:11-14). God never breaks a promise—you can count on that!
Furthermore, these names not only tell the story of God’s purpose and God’s promise, but they tell us the story of God’s grace in using fallen and quite flawed human beings as the conduit through whom his Son would be born. In this listing of the Messiah’s progenitors are some unlikely and undeserving people: Tamar, a Gentile woman who slept with her father-in-law; Rahab, a Gentile prostitute; Ruth, a Gentile woman from the hated Moabite nation; and Bathsheba, who is listed as the “wife of Uriah the Hittite”, the woman with whom King David had an adulterous affair.
It is nothing less than amazing that God would use people you would never expect as the human conduit through which he would fulfill his purposes and his promises. And if God would use people like them, he will use people like you and me. That is the grace of God!
This opening chapter here in Matthew’s Gospel that begins with all these strange and boring names tells us the amazing story of how our purposeful, faithful and gracious God went to extreme lengths to reach us and redeem us with his love. He didn’t send his love through a written message, or a public service announcement, or a sign in the heavens. He sent himself! He sent his love through a baby born in a manger, who was called Immanuel—which means, “God is now with us.”
Here we are at the beginning of the New Year, and I don’t know what this year holds for you and me, but I know Who holds this year. He is Immanuel. He is God, and he is with us. He is the God who will fulfill each of his promises and who will accomplish all of his purposes—not the least of which is to conform us to the likeness of his Son. He is the unstoppable God, and making us more like Christ is his target—and he never misses!
And he is the God who has every right to rule my life—and yours!
Have you set some action steps that will allow God to completely rule your life this year? I hope so. I have—I’ve listed 5 of them below (I have a few more that I’ll not bore you with at the moment). Take some time to write down your action steps—and if you don’t mind, share them with someone to whom you will be accountable.
- To have a daily quiet time with God—Bible reading, journaling and prayer.
- To share my faith with a lost person at least once per month.
- To live a morally pure and God-pleasing life each of the next 365 days.
- To look more like Christ in my thinking, feeling and acting life—that my growth in Christ-likeness will be evident to my family, associates and followers.
- To know and do God’s perfect will.
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