Day 2: Did You Realize?

Read: Isaiah 7:13-16, 1 John 5:13-14

I am pretty good at guessing the plot lines of TV shows and movies. I am so good that a lot of the time, it ruins what I am watching because I already know who did what and why before the protagonist even realizes. Even though I guess the main parts of the plot often, I’m never able to guess all the details.

By this, I mean that I can know who the “bad guy” is, but I never fully guess the background and all the motives to why that person came out that way. I’ve never been able to and I don’t think I ever will.

Now, even if it may be hard to believe, there were people in the Bible who could see the big picture of what was going to happen and also the details. They weren’t just saying what would happen next in a TV show, but in real life. These people were called prophets; they predicted so many things.

One of the most wonderful prophecies is found in Isaiah 7:14. It says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”

This was one of the earlier prophecies of Jesus’ coming. An important fact to note is that Isaiah was written 700 hundred years before the birth of Christ! The birth of Jesus definitely wasn’t just a whim. God had always planned to send His Son to save us. Even back in Genesis 3, the coming of a Savior is mentioned after the Fall.

This is our hope: God promised to send us His Son and save us from ourselves. We are no longer in waiting as the prophets were. He has already come and saved us. As it says in 1 John 5:13-14, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

We can celebrate and have peace in the fact that we are so loved, and that our future is in His hands. Now, that’s definitely something to have hope in. Truly, thanks be to God who was so willing to send His Son to be with us.

It oftentimes seems as if we don’t realize the magnitude of the coming of Christ, and how the anticipation must have felt. This is how God planned to show His love to us all along, from the beginning. This is what it was all about. Can you even imagine a bigger sacrifice?