When my wife and I were married the wedding ceremony was closed with the song, God be with us until we meet again.  The idea of God being with us in our marriage was a wonderful thought to close out the ceremony.  In fact it is a very appealing sentiment for any occasion.  It was such an important concept to God that In the first chapter of the book of Matthew it was revealed that the name of Jesus would be called Immanuel which translated means God With Us.  Jesus was the physical expression of God coming to be with people.  Everything about Jesus properly received and understood still today declares God with us. 

Different things leap into our minds when we think about God being with us.  It is a very warm and desirable idea to have God with us.  We proclaim the presence of God in our lives to anyone who will listen.  We often ask God to be with us when we pray.  We ask Him to be with our loved ones who are traveling or who are in the hospital.  We tell people who are struggling in life that if they will turn to God He will never leave them.  I think it is important for us to think about what we mean by the idea of God being with us.

What most people think about in terms of God with them is more about the usefulness of God.  To many people it means having God step in and take charge when they need Him to.  God with us really means God heal us, God save us, God protect us and God hear us when we cry.  There is nothing necessarily wrong with this idea except it does not really mean this to us in our normal living.  If someone is with us in our real lives then they are certainly present much more during normal times than just times of crisis.  To think of God being with us only in the times we need Him is really not to think in proper terms at all.  Perhaps unknowingly our idea of God with us actually allows us to easily omit Him from our normal daily walk.  When we think of God being with us only in these terms we often don't really believe He is there in the crisis either.

The fact that God declared that Jesus would be the initiation of His moment to moment presence with His people should be a stop us in our tracks kind of realization.  God actually wants to involve Himself on a basis deeper than being our religious leader.  He doesn't want to only have occasional organized contact but instead He wants to be our constant companion.  Not only does He want this but He has arranged for it in the fleshly coming of Jesus.  It wasn't possible before Jesus for anyone to have God with them to the degree that it became possible after Jesus came.  Jesus was God coming to be with us.

God visited with Adam and Eve in the garden.  He guided the preparation of an ark for Noah and his family.  God came down to see the tower of Babel. He made covenants with Abraham.  He worked through Moses and kings and judges and prophets, all in an effort to demonstrate His very real desire to be with His people.  Not just to test them or control them but in a sense defined by Him to be with them.  God doesn't need anything to boost His ego or make Himself feel powerful.  If He simply wanted to test us then we failed long ago.  God desires to be with us and has expressed that desire most fully in Jesus.

To accept Jesus Christ should be understood as an embracing of life with God.  It is to bring God into every aspect of our lives and not just the crises and not just the needy parts.  Life with God does require that we learn important truths about the life with God that He offers.  Jesus came to invite people to life with God in the here and now.  He came to describe what this life would be like and to prepare men and women to move into it.  This is reflected in the theme of Jesus inviting people to enter and live in the Kingdom of God.

Life with God is available now in a very real sense to those who are receptive to it.  Life with God means bringing God into our thoughts, desires, purpose and meaning.  It means that our significance comes from the degree to which our lives are intertwined with His.  We measure our relationships, our happiness, our success in terms of Gods presence in them.  We carefully identify and eliminate the areas of our lives in which we are resisting Gods involvement.

Jesus has put Himself and His teachings at our disposal to facilitate life with God.  All His teachings are geared to this end, not to be rules and legal requirements but to help us overcome the thousands of ways that we resist life with God and the powerful attachment we have to living without God's interference.   The struggle is not really against interference from God but against our strong commitment to self.  We live in a world that is fully committed to finding a way to live without God.  Only by putting ourselves at the instruction and correction of Jesus can we oppose the tide of self commitment.  By putting ourselves at the feet of Jesus as His followers we allow ourselves to be led into life with God.

There is no more powerful statement than these three simple words describing Jesus Christ.

God With Us.

Matthew 1:23  "BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH US."