As we move from Thanksgiving into the Christmas season, we’re reminded of the name of Jesus both prophesied by Isaiah and also the name which the angel instructed Joseph to give to Mary’s child; Immanuel – God with us.

This is a tremendous name that helps describe and understand more fully who God is.  He is the God who is with us.  This name for Jesus perfectly explains who Jesus truly was – God in the flesh.  However, that name goes beyond just His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection.  It embodies the promise of God and the nature of God.  He is the God who is with us.

It was true in the Garden of Eden before our sinful choices separated us from God.  It was God’s desire as He covered our sin and shame in the garden.  It was on God’s heart as He continued to reach out to us and to work mightily in and through any who turned their lives to Him.  It was God’s longing as He created a way for us to be forgiven of our sins that separate us through the Old Covenant. 

It was God’s passion as He, Himself, humbled Himself to live a sinless life in our flesh and then sacrificed Himself to pay the price for our sin and to die that we might live.  It was His joy as He pours His very Presence into our lives through the Holy Spirit under the New Covenant.  God with us in the most significant way ever!

1 Corinthians 3:16 (NCV)

Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

James 4:5-8 (NCV)

5 Do you think the Scripture means nothing that says, “The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone”? 6 But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,

“God is against the proud,

    but he gives grace to the humble.” (Proverbs 3:34)

7 So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you. 8 Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You sinners, clean sin out of your lives. You who are trying to follow God and the world at the same time, make your thinking pure.

Ephesians 2:22

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

2 Corinthians 6:16

…For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them

    and walk among them,

and I will be their God,

    and they will be my people.” (Lev. 26:12; Jer. 32:38; Ezek. 37:27)

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

All of those who have placed their faith in Jesus to receive His salvation are now carriers of the Presence of God because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us.  God with us; carriers of the Presence!

Beginning in Exodus 25, God instructed Moses to make a sanctuary where His Presence would dwell with His people.  God gave Moses specific instructions on how to build a tabernacle and contents for within it.  One significant item was a wooden ark overlaid in gold called the ark of the covenant.  That was the place where the very Presence of God dwelt (Exodus 25:8-22).

The ark of the covenant was placed in a unique location in this tabernacle, later in the temple buildings in which it was placed, and of course, within Heaven which this place was a shadow copy of.  This place was the inner court known as The Most Holy Place or the Holy of Holies.  Only one person was allowed to enter this place; the high priest at the time.  They were only allowed to enter that place once a year and only after a lengthy process of preparation.

The curtain that separated everyone from this place was the very one that was torn in the temple when Jesus gave His life on the cross.  It represented that there no longer needed to be a separation between God and man because the cost of sin had finally been paid for in full.  It is finished!

Now, we are the temple and w