"No Man Is An Island"-- (John Donne)

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel'-- which means, 'God with us.'"  (Matthew 1:23)

There was a popular song when I was in grammar school which had a line in it, "in my little corner of the world."  There is no such place.  You and I are a part of humanity.  There is no corner where we can hide, can protect, can escape to.  Mankind will find us, call to us.  Jesus, "God with us," is calling to us in the midst of humanity-- "I am here."  John Dunn once wrote that "no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."  (I have sent the entire meditation to our blog devotional site.  You should read it---powerful.)

God of Creation is not a created god of man, an isolated god, far from us, praying to Mecca kind of god.  He is "God with us," right here, right there.  Jesus is "God with us."  He did not stay in the "Ivory Palaces," but "came into the world to save sinners...."  And because of the Blood, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God is not only "with us," but "in" those who receive and obey Him.   He is, indeed, "a very present help."

Your call and my call, the call of the Church, which is "the household of the faith," is to be the living demonstration in the world of "God with us," not off in "my little corner of the world," or as we saw recently, trampling people to death to fulfill some barbaric, primeval lust.  We are called to manifest what Bohnhoeffer described as "Christ present in the world"--------------------- loving, blessing, deferring, giving. 

Father, in Jesus' Name, I have spent too much time in "my little corner of the world."  Take me to Your "corner."  Amen.
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"Looking Unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2



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