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Today's Devotion
From Dr. David Jeremiah
God With Us
December 17, 2025
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14
Recommended Reading:
Isaiah 7:1-147 Now it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but could not prevail against it. 2 And it was told to the house of David, saying, “Syria’s forces are deployed in Ephraim.” So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-Jashub[{{f}}] your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, 4 and say to him: ‘Take heed, and be quiet; do not fear or be fainthearted for these two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you, saying, 6 “Let us go up against Judah and trouble it, and let us make a gap in its wall for ourselves, and set a king over them, the son of Tabel”—7 thus says the Lord God:“It shall not stand,Nor shall it come to pass.8 For the head of Syria is Damascus,And the head of Damascus is Rezin.Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken,So that it will not be a people.9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,And the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son.If you will not believe,Surely you shall not be established.”’”10 Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11 “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.”12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!”13 Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.[{{f}}]
Isaiah 7:1-14
Ahaz, king of Judah, was faced with enemies who sought to conquer Jerusalem (Isaiah 7:1). So the prophet Isaiah told Ahaz that God would give him a sign: A virgin would bear a son who would be named Immanuel—meaning “God with us.” The sign was to convince Ahaz that God would be with him and deliver him from his enemies.
But Isaiah’s prophecy proved to be a foreshadowing of what would happen to another virgin some seven centuries later: Mary, the mother of Jesus. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary’s pregnancy was from God (Matthew 1:20-21). And Matthew explains that Mary’s conception was a fulfillment of the prophecy given to Ahaz that a virgin would be with Child and bear a Son who would be called Immanuel, “which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). And it happened just as Isaiah prophesied and Matthew confirmed.
Christmas celebrates the reality that God came to dwell among us (John 1:14). And He is with us still by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
Nothing in or of this world measures up to the simple pleasure of experiencing the presence of God.
A. W. Tozer
