Immanuel

Here is the promised post on Immanuel! Two days after Christmas, but, done nonetheless. :) Also, comment please! Helps me know what ya'll are thinkin'. :)

Matthew 1:23

"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, "God with us." (As prophesied in Isaiah 7:14.)

God wasn't called Immanuel in the Old Testament because He wasn't literally with us in the Old Testament. His Spirit at times rested on people and then departed, and evil spirits also rested on people.

1 Samuel 16:14-23

But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me.” Then one of the servants answered and said, “Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the LORD is with him.”
Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse, and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul. So David came to Saul and stood before him. And he loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.” And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.

Now that Christ has come to earth and lived among us, died for us, and has been risen from the dead, He is with us all the time. He sent the Holy Spirit to be our comforter or our helper.

John 16:7

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

Now, there was a lot of Scripture in this post, but I think that Scripture explains the meaning and the incredible depth of Immanuel way better than I could.

I Apologize

Ok, I apologize for my lack of posts. I was gonna do Immanuel in light of Christmas and all that, but I just haven't been up to it. Hopefully I'll be up to blogging again here pretty soon. Unfortunately, since Wednesday, most all I've been doing is coughing, sneezing, coughing, sleeping, coughing, and hanging out with my family. But yeah, I woke up sick on Wednesday. No fun. I was sure I'd be better by Christmas, but, no such luck. :) I am probably gonna have to go to the doctor, because my mom's pretty sure I have bronchitis and am maybe developing a respiratory infection. And the way I feel, I'm not arguing with her. haha. :)
But, in spite of being sick, I had a wonderful Christmas. I got some amazing slippers and PJ's and a Wii! I was so super excited. It is awesome. The archery. Oh my word. SO FUN. And my dad played too, that was fun! He beat me in archer though... Haha. And I got to spend a lovely two days with my brothers, sister-in-law, and darling niece. It was fun. And, I got to talk to Aaron. So, pretty much, my weekend was good. :)

Rambling...

Ok, so I'm watching the premier of the new Christmas movie on Hallmark. It's called "Battle of the Bulbs." It's really quite ridiculous. It's about two men who had a falling out in high school and 30 years later live in the same neighborhood and their buried bitterness towards each other manifests itself into a giant contest on who will have the best lights and decorations on their house by Christmas. Weird. This morning I watched "All I Want For Christmas." Now that's a good Hallmark movie. That, and "The Christmas Card." Those are my favorite Christmas Hallmark movies. :) You should watch them. What are your favorite Christmas movies?
So, I've had an amazing weekend. Yesterday Sarah came over and spent the night. It was WAY fun! We practiced our duet that we're singing together at church tomorrow night, played a game, made cookies and we watched Hallmark movies. How late did we stay up? 11:30. We are party animals. I'm tellin' ya.
And then today I went and picked up Lenita and we went shopping! It was SO much fun. I had a lovely weekend with my friends. :)
I still have one Christmas present to get. My dad's. I have no idea what to get him, and there are 7 days until Christmas. Do any of you guys have any last minute shopping to do?

Comforter

Ok, so this one seems rather ironic after falling down the stairs today, smashing my ankle and landing really hard on my backside on the cold, hard floor of my garage. So, let's see what we can learn about our Comforter. :)
First off, what does a comforter do? Is someone who comforts you merely feeling sympathy for you and allaying your fears about something? Or is it more than that? Though feeling sympathy and lessening the intensity of someone's grief is a big part of comforting someone, Jesus takes it to the next level.
John 16:7 "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you." Helper is also considered Comforter. This refers to the Holy Spirit. So, the Holy Spirit is our comforter permanently. How cool is that? So, since Jesus is not here on earth with us, He sent us the Holy Spirit to be with us all the time, as our comforter, our helper, our intercessor. This is how Jesus takes comfort to the next level. When we need comfort, or sympathy, anything, our friends and family will fail us. They can't possibly be there for us 100% of the time. But, if you're saved, you are constantly in the presence of the greatest comforter there is. So, let that be a reminder that the first thing you should do when you've had a fight with your parents or a friend, when you got a bad grade, when things are falling apart, go to God. Go to your ever present help in time of need.

Jehovah

Jehovah literally means to be, or to become known. We use it as "The Lord." Jehovah doesn't usually stand on its own, it often has another name after it. It is also sometimes used interchangeably with Yahweh.
Here are some of the Jehovah names:
Jehovah Nissi - The Lord My Banner
Jehovah-Raah - The Lord My Shepherd
Jehovah Rapha - The Lord That Heals
Jehovah Shammah - The Lord Is There
Jehovah Tsidkenu - The Lord Our Righteousness
Jehovah Mekoddishkem - The Lord Who Sanctifies You
Jehovah Jireh - The Lord Will Provide
Jehovah Shalom - The Lord Is Peace
Jehovah Sabaoth - The Lord of Hosts
So, there's not really too much information that I could find on Jehovah by itself. But, as you can see from the names above, it is obviously being used as The Lord and then the words after it are descriptive words to more declare His attributes and what He does and who He is.
Also, when you see LORD in all caps in your Bible, it stands for Jehovah/Yahweh.
Isaiah 40:3 “Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God."