We Have Heard That God Is With You

Among the other nations, Judah and Israel became symbols of a cursed nation. But no longer! Now I will rescue you and make you both a symbol and a source of blessing. So don’t be afraid. Be strong, and get on with rebuilding the Temple! Zechariah 8:13

THE BIRTH OF JESUS is the fulfillment of a promise first given in the Garden when God promised that one day a child would be born, a descendant of Eve, who would crush the head of the serpent. The promise is then traced to Abraham. God promised to bless him and told him, “All the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3).

Here in Zechariah, the promise of a blessing and of being a blessing is made once again to the descendants of Abraham who have returned to the land God gave their forefather many centuries before. It must have been hard for them to believe, because everything about their circumstances made it appear that they were under God’s curse rather than recipients or conduits of his blessing. Zechariah was saying that not only would they shed any sense of being cursed, but that God would make them both a symbol and a source of blessing.

How would this happen? God would come to them. He would work in them in such a way that “the people of one city will say to the people of another, ‘Come with us to Jerusalem to ask the LORD to bless us. Let’s worship the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. I’m determined to go.’ . . . Men from different nations and languages of the world will clutch at the sleeve of one Jew. And they will say, ‘Please let us walk with you, for we have heard that God is with you’” (Zechariah 8:21, 23).

Today, as we celebrate the coming of the one promised in the Garden, the one promised to Abraham through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed, the one who is Immanuel, God with us, we long for God to fulfill the promise he made through Zechariah. We long to live with such peace and joy that people —neighbors, coworkers, and family members who are outside of Christ —will take hold of us and say, “Please let us walk with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

Lord, please work in our family today to make us both a symbol and a source of the blessing that comes only through Christ. Make us strong so we can get on with being used by you to build your spiritual temple —your church —in our day.