"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV)
We know that it was God’s great love for us that compelled him to send his one and only son, Jesus, to earth as a baby at Christmas. This passage references God as a “Mighty Warrior,” and in other translations we see “a mighty one who will save” (ESV) and “a mighty savior” (NLT). In all of those, we see the common theme of Jesus, being the strong one who will save. But we also see Jesus fulfilling the name the angel gives in the book of Matthew, “Immanuel,” which means “God with us,” just as Zephaniah reminds us in the beginning of this passage.
In order to save us all, God chose to show his vast love for us, by sending his own Son to be “God with us,” not a far off God, but a mighty one who is coming to save his people. It’s moments like these where we draw back to the Gospel and remember that Christmas is all about the good news, friends. How might you remember that God is not a far off God today?