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GOD WITH US: 365 Devotions on the Person and Work of Christ
Compiled and Edited by Justin S. Holcomb
Spend a year with classic Christian authors, theologians, and pastors
Each engaging entry in this 365-day devotional will bring fresh insight to your time in God's Word. Selected from the works of classic Christian writers, this collection is focused on the person and work of Christ. It has been lightly edited for today's reader while maintaining the overall style and structure of the original material.
Each day begins with a passage from Scripture that focuses on Jesus Christ, followed by a brief reflection from an author or theologian exploring the Scripture's significance. The devotions contain writings from John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, J. C. Ryle, Herman Bavinck, B. B. Warfield, Martin Luther, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Thomas Aquinas, and more.
Let 'God with Us' bring you a daily dose of powerful insights from classic writers while drawing you ever closer to our Lord and Savior.
INTRODUCTION by Justin Holcomb
"The goal of this devotional is to expand upon a simple yet elegant line from George Herbert that captures two essential features of the Christian teaching about Jesus Christ: 'In Christ two natures met to be thy cure.'
The first is the person of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. At the Father’s bidding and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Son assumed human nature at the incarnation: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The divine nature and human nature “met” in the one person of Jesus Christ.
The second is the work of Christ. The Lord took on the form of a servant to be our “cure.” By subjecting himself to the frailties and temptations of our condition and yet remaining without sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, undoing the consequences of sin. In His incarnation, obedience, death, resurrection, ascension, and future return, Jesus Christ accomplished redemption.
Let us ponder the astonishing truth that, as the Nicene Creed eloquently states, the Son of God “for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” The Nicene Creed, the cornerstone of orthodox Christian belief, attaches saving significance not only to Christ’s death and resurrection but also to His incarnation and birth.
This book celebrates that Jesus Christ is God with us and God for us. It explores the abundance, capacity, and immensity of Christ’s tender and powerful love for you. It explores His sovereign rule as Lord and King. We will see that the person and work of Christ have very personal implications for you. Those same implications are also comprehensive for all creation. The Lord delights in showing mercy to you, and He is making all things new.
The selected texts in this devotional display the wonder of the person of Christ, the fullness of His marvelous works, and the tenderness of the very heart of God incarnate. These excerpts from classic Christian writers, theologians, and pastors have been gently edited to enhance their readability."
SAMPLE READING: DAY TWO
Scripture Text: Matthew 9:36-- When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
"Compassion is no doubt the emotion we would naturally expect to find most frequently attributed to Jesus, whose whole life was a mission of mercy, and whose ministry was so marked by deeds of generosity that it was summed up in the memory of His followers as a going through the land “doing good” (Acts 10:38). In fact, this is the emotion that is most frequently attributed to Him. The term compassion first appears in common use in this sense in the Synoptic Gospels.
The divine mercy has been defined as that essential perfection in God “whereby He pities and relieves the miseries of His creatures.” It includes two parts: an internal movement of pity and an external act of kindness or generosity. It is the internal movement of pity that is emphasized when our Lord is said to be “moved with compassion,” as the term is sometimes excellently rendered in the English versions. In the appeals made to His mercy, a more external word is used; but it is this more internal word that is employed to express our Lord’s response to these appeals: the petitioners sought Him to take pity on them; His heart responded with a profound feeling of pity for them.
His compassion fulfilled itself in outward acts; but what is emphasized by the term used to express our Lord’s response is the profound internal movement of His emotional nature. This emotional nature was aroused in our Lord as well by the sight of individual distress as by the spectacle of humanity’s universal misery. The sight of their desperate plight awakens our Lord’s pity and moves Him to provide the remedy." —B. B. WARFIELD, “On the Emotional Life of Our Lord,” in Biblical and Theological Studies (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912) 40–42.
JUSTIN S. HOLCOMB is an Episcopal minister and teaches theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He has written, co-authored, or edited more than twenty books on numerous topics including historical and systematic theology, sexual assault, domestic abuse, and biblical studies. Justin is a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio show and podcast. He has also written for Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, and Modern Reformation.
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