Immanuel – With You Today

Matthew 28,20

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

RECOMMENDED READING: Isaiah 7:5-14  “5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:7 Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.10 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying,11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

COMMENTS:  Today David Jeremiah shared a life experience of a Missionary named Frank Lauach.  Frank was a missionary initially in the Philippines in Muslim communities but expanded to the work of teaching people to read and write personally and later through his writings.  His work touched 103 countries in 313 languages and included 56 books he authored.  His principle was “Each One Teach One” with the technique of associating pictures with words.

Frank, in 1930, began a life-long quest or experiment to practice and discover if practicing the presence of God can be achieved 24x7x365 consistently without stop or breaks.  Is it possible to be in contact with God and in fellowship with Him all the time?  To be in His presence every waking hour and fall asleep in His Arms? To be awakened in His Presence and do His Will without fail all day long and every day?  Can we think His thoughts all the time and be in obedience of His Will all the time?  He made it a quest and experiment to attempt to do just that.  One March 23, 1930 he wrote “I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment to answering this question.”  As time went on he wrote “Things which I did with a strain before, I now do easily and with no effort whatsoever.  I worry about nothing and lose no sleep… Even the mirror reveals a new light in my eyes.”

Christ was the only One who ever inhabited human flesh to perfectly achieve that goal, but Frank Lauach achieved much success and progress to that goal with noted benefits.   God honored his quest and both helped and guided him towards that goal.  Frank continued to become more Christ-like each day and sustain deeper and more consistent fellowship with Him as He grew in years and aged in body.  He discovered that by turning away from temptation and towards Christ, that doing God’s Will got easier and more natural and temptations were less appealing.   But appealing and powerful  they still were and God’s presence was still at times difficult to sustain.

God promised a wonderful end of life’s journey if we are and remain faithful to Him.  He promises to walk that journey with us and never leave or forsake us.  Our job is to put and keep our eyes and attention on Him and our hand in His.  When we get distracted by temptations and yield to those temptations, we lose track and forget that God is there to help.  By taking our eyes off Him and our hand out of His, we quickly forget He is there to help and fail to take advantage of His available help.  We quickly get into trouble and fall into sin.  Satan is quick to pull us into his web of deception and misery and death when that happens.  Free will continues to be an opportunity God gives us to wisely choose Him or foolishly choose sin. 

But God has always made obedience and fellowship with Him a choice we make or refuse while always offering it to His people in every generation including ours and including you and me.  

We too can choose, like Frank Lauach to make continual fellowship with Christ our goal and focus on accomplishing that goal.  God’s Holy Spirit is in and with us 24x7x365 to aid and strengthen and guide us in  that quest. The mystery of  Christ and the Father abiding in us when we invite the Holy Spirit in and with us is  the mystery of His Trinity. Not understanding that doesn’t prevent us from enjoying that mystery nor taking advantage of His abiding presence.  Will you join me this Advent and New Year making Frank Lauach’s experiment and goal a personal goal too?  I realize just how lofty and formidable a goal it is.  Even more formidable than losing weight or exercising, which have been failed resolutions from past years for me and you.  But then again, we need not attempt to keep this one alone and God does want us to succeed in this goal. 

I think we will need to paste reminders on our bathroom mirror and refrigerator and on our computer screen and a multitude of other places we go during our work day.  The wonderful news is failure need not be permanent and God is an expert on forgiveness and do-overs.  Progress implies the need for and acceptance of forgiveness and do-overs.  Christ was born and lived and died and rose again  to buy each and every do-over and instance of forgiveness to each of us.  So let’s not waste that precious gift He sacrificed so much to provide to each of us.   AMEN?  AMEN! 

We can enjoy God’s continual presence because the name Immanuel means “God with us.” His prophetically-given name indicates the pouring out of God’s personal presence, like a waterfall, descending from highest heaven to lowest earth, giving us access to the flood of His nearness.

Live consciously in His presence today! Think of Him. Listen to Him. Talk to Him. Remind yourself of His closeness. The One called Immanuel said, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).

So why would we want to follow Frank’s  quest personally? What would be the benefits?  Here are just a few to consider:

  1. We will be better  prepared for heaven
  2. We will avoid more of the consequences of sin including regrets and do-overs and restitution while enjoying more of the blessings and benefits of following God’s direction.
  3. Full focused attention on being a blessing to others.  This brings closers friendships, a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment and accomplishment at end of each day.
  4. More efficient use of resources –  money, time, energy (physical and emotional),  resulting in more resources to do more good because of less wasted energy on sinful – evil –  destructive choices.
  5. A deeper and more meaningful and more joyful relationship with God – a deeper love for and understanding of Him and with other followers.
  6. Greater available resources from other believers due to deeper and closer relationships  with them and better established and used (stronger) working skills with them (from more frequent cooperative partnerships with  them in past.
  7. More go to sources for help in times of need.
  8. Less frequent times of loneliness and desperation and hopelessness and fear.
  9. Greater – more developed skills in seeking from and giving help to others.
  10. A GREATER AND BROADER POSITIVE ETERNAL IMPACT ON OTHERS FOR CHRIST !

The list could easily go on all day  without scratching the surface.  I’m sure by  reading this list that you have already thought of a few more.  But you get the idea and are realizing with me that such a quest would be well worth the effort and should be something we all start focusing on in 2019, right? 

So why does spending more time with Christ seem so  foreign to us?  Why does such an endeavor tempt us to resist?  Could it be the carnal nature that still remains in us and the temptor still exercising influence in our mind and soul are still dominant in our lives and still a powerful influence on our daily choices and thoughts and attitudes?  Is pride selfishness still a dominant part of our motivation and reason to the choices we make.  Are acts of kindness only considered when we think personal benefit is result instead of solely being motivated by bringing blessing to others and honor to our Savior?

Well, truth is that we all still fall short of having pure and good motives for choices we make.  We haven’t achieved Frank’s goal or even gone as far as he did while living because we haven’t tried to and haven’t asked God’s help either.  The obvious question is “Does Christ want us to strive toward Frank’s goal of spending more time with Him?”  The answer is not only “Of Course” but He is passionate about wanting to spend more time with each one of us. 

Let’s face it, when we get to heaven we will definitely want to spend more time with Him and will not be bothered or dissuaded by satan’s tricks and deceptions.  Some would say why not enjoy sin while we can in meantime?  The answer is why not enjoying more of heaven now instead.  If we are looking forward more to sin than in pleasing Him, then we still have far too much carnality and sin in our lives.  So what do I really want?  What do you really want?  Do we truly want to please and live for Christ or do we want to follow the path to judgment and hell satan would lead us?  There is no middle ground or other path or choice.   It is 100%  one way or 100% the other .    But not choosing God’s way, we automatically choose  the other.   Scripture is clear on that.  That is why Christ paid such a high price, so we could choose  His way.  The alternative is too terrible for us to imagine and for Him to accept.  But accept He must if we still choose not  to accept His Way, the Way of the Cross, the Way of Redemption.  So, let start walking down Frank’s path in 2019 and include Christ and His Holy Spirit in everything we do, in every conversation we have, in every  work project and meeting we do and participate in,  in every decision and choice we make, in every relationship we develop and have, ….   AMEN?  AMEN!

 

If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 328 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.

You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily.  My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to   explore and use my devotional blog materials.

My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.

Published by donsdevotions

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Don McDaniel - Who am I? Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever. Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me. I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private. However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool. Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry. He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 . I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine. I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward. Don & Arlene McDaniel In His Service, Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951 If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ ) You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.

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