Rejoice! God is with us!

Matt 1:23 NIV
"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"-which means, "God with us."

"God with us." Now that is the best message of all for you and I to know. It is not just at Christmas that He is with us - it is 24/7 - 365 days a year; for a life time. Rejoice!

When God is with us it is possible to live out these words found in 1 Peter 3:8-18 in The Message:

Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless — that's your job, to bless. You'll be a blessing and also get a blessing. Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good,Here's what you do:Say nothing evil or hurtful; Snub evil and cultivate good;run after peace for all you're worth. God looks on all this with approval,listening and responding well to what he's asked;But he turns his back on those who do evil things. If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you're still better off. Don't give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They'll end up realizing that they're the ones who need a bath. It's better to suffer for doing good, if that's what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That's what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others' sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all — was put to death and then made alive — to bring us to God.

God does not promise that life will always be easy - He promises that He will be with us in life. We must just have faith and believe. When the message came to Joseph that Mary was pregnant with God's Son, Joseph had been pondering quietly whether he should divorce her quietly, for Joseph believed that Mary had been unfaithful. The message of the angel assured Joseph that everything was okay. Reading on in the Christmas story we discover that things didn't get any easier for Joseph and Mary. But we also discover in the Christmas story that God was with them. Keep your faith in God and His Son, Jesus. He is with you. Rejoice!