Come And Behold Him: Advent DevotionsSample

The God Who Lived Your Life

Do you ever wonder if God understands your life? Whether he really understands what it means to be human and deal with all the stuff we have to deal with—the stress and worry, the health scares and difficult teenagers, the bills and demanding bosses?

Amazingly he does! We serve a God who became one of us!

As a good Jew, along with all of his people, Joseph would have been waiting for the Anointed One God promised to send to save his people. What Joseph—or his people for that matter—would not have expected was that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, would conceive a child in his fiancée’s womb and “be known as ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God became one of us’ ” (Luke 1:21, 23 TPT).

The writer of Hebrews wrote, “Since all his ‘children’ have flesh and blood, so Jesus became human to fully identify with us. He did this, so that he could experience death and annihilate the effects of the intimidating accuser who holds against us the power of death” (2:14 TPT).

He doesn’t stop there, though; he goes on: “For we have a magnificent King-Priest, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who rose into the heavenly realm for us, and now sympathizes with us in our frailty. He understands humanity, for as a Man, our magnificent King-Priest was tempted in every way just as we are, and conquered sin. So now we come freely and boldly to where love is enthroned, to receive mercy’s kiss and discover the grace we urgently need to strengthen us in our time of weakness” (4:14–16 TPT).

Think about this: The God of the universe “sympathizes with us in our frailty,” he “understands humanity.” How?

Because he “became a man and lived among us,” as John says! He “became human to fully identify with us!” (1:14 TPT).

God lived this life, which means he understands your life—all of your frailty and pain, your baggage and brokenness. He understands humiliation because he was humiliated on the cross. He understands rejection because he was rejected. He understands sorrow because he was a man of sorrows.

The beauty and majesty of the Christmas season is that Mary gave birth to Emmanuel, to the God who became one of us.

Advent Prayer of Hope

God, I thank you for becoming one of us and experiencing all that life has to offer. May it give me strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow knowing that you understand my life because you lived my life. Amen.