Dec. 24, 2023

The Virgin Birth

Isaiah 7:14

When we face the darkness that accompanies life, we place our trust in God’s miraculous power in times of trouble and doubt. God gives us hope for the future (Eternal life through His Son Jesus, He also gives us hope for today, Emmanuel, God with us!  There have always been reasons to be fearful and to lose hope in the world. Life can get chaotic and stressful at times. Sometimes those stresses are magnified during the Christmas season. There is so much stuff swirling around us that, at times, we can lose hope and start to place our trust in places where we should know better. We all need something to grasp onto so that we can stay hopeful, joyful, and faithful. God did something for us to help us to strengthen our hope, joy, and faith! Jesus’s birth is a powerful display of God’s faithfulness to bring peace, hope, healing, and life to a lost and dying world. Because of Jesus, we can experience the joy that comes through his finished work. How many times in life have we made bad decisions when we decided not to put our trust in the Lord? When we struggle to trust God, we can tell him, “I got this” when we really don’t. That lack of trust shows our continual need to grow in our relationship with him.  Isaiah’s prophecy of hope was given in a time of hopelessness and rebellion, a time where those leading God’s people were not holy.  When we face the darkness that accompanies life, we place our trust in God’s miraculous power in times of trouble and doubt.  God gives us hope for the future (Eternal life through His Son Jesus, He also gives us hope for today, Emmanuel, God with us!

Questions:

1.    How does the virgin birth give us hope?

2.    When do we need that hope?

3.    What does Emmauel?