Pause With The Pastor

Matthew 1:22-25---All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" which means, "God with us." When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Before Jesus’ birth, God was remote from mankind. God was in heaven and interacted with mankind but not as a human being. God was unseen, remote, and for the most part silent. When Jesus came into the world, God was interacting with all of us on a human to human level. God chose Joseph to be a human model to be Jesus’ father. In this verse, we can see not only that Joseph was righteous in his heart, but Joseph was also willing and able to do exactly what God wanted to be done. We don’t know much about Joseph from the scripture accounts, but what we do know is more than enough to tell us about Joseph’s character and willingness to lead his life as God directed. We also know Joseph was a man who loved Mary. Let all of us strive to be like Joseph before our Savior and always strive to follow His direction in our lives.