You know the story. You call Tech Support and spend an hour going through a series of “self-help” steps directed by an assumed expert on the other end of the line. All the while, you hear the click of the keyboard as your expert “googles” the answer to your question. After the series of self-help steps fails, the technician finally relents and promises to “send someone out to take a look.”

When it came to redeeming His creation, God did not offer a “series of self-help steps,” He did not promise to “send someone right out,” but instead He sent Himself. Consider these two verses:

“Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive, have a son, and name Him Immanuel – ‘God is with us.'” Isaiah 7:14

“The Word (Jesus) became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

Let that truth really sink in . . . God came down and got in a human body!!! For hundreds of years He had sent His leaders, teachers, and prophets to do His work, but when the time was just right, He showed up on the scene HIMSELF. God WITH US. Immanuel is not just a Christmas word, but a living reality for those of us in God’s family. God is here, within us. He knows how we feel, what we face, what we need. He is more than acquainted with our concerns and more than able to address them and handle them. He is STILL IMMANUEL!

And don’t miss that line from the John 1 passage: “we beheld His glory.” Beheld it, gazed at it, saw it often, looked at it with the purpose of analyzing, learning, being blessed by it. And what a unique glory it was . . . One and Only are the words John used to describe it. Have you seen the glory of God around you? I mean really, do we look for God to operate in “One and Only” kind of ways? I think we rather prefer the usual, the explainable, the expected. We do not look for God to do something new around us. But, brothers and sisters, I don’t know about you, but as for me this Christmas, I am making it my prayer, my aim, my passion to see the unique glory of Jesus Christ. I have grown weary of the “same old same old,” and I am holding up some new wineskins into which I want God to pour new wine.

Please, Lord, this Christmas, let me see you in new and fresh ways. Let me see your glory in such a way that it is unmistakably YOU.