The mystery and the miracle of the birth of Christ was the fulfillment of the promise that God would be with his people.

The very name Emmanuel means God with us, and Jesus Christ is our Emmanuel. In this study, Scott Pauley reminds us of our ever-present

Savior, God with us. Do you need rest today? Frankly, sometimes we just need physical rest. The Bible says that God

gives his beloved sleep. Aren't you grateful for the gift of sleep? Sometimes the best thing you can do is

take a nap. And we have to sleep. We have to rest. Sometimes you need just a mental break from the weariness of certain taxing things that we have

to deal with. But the greatest rest of all is the rest that only Christ can provide. It is spirit rest. It's

soul rest. Can you hear Jesus saying, come into me all you that labor and are heavy laden,

and I will give you rest.

We're continuing our study of this beautiful truth of God with us.

And one of the things we discover in Acts chapter number 18 in the experience of the

Apostle Paul is that God's presence, the Lord's nearness, God with us, brings rest. Paul is in a difficult season. Acts

18, verse 1 says, after these things, Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth and found a certain

Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because

that Claudius had commanded all Jews to

depart from Rome and came unto them. And because he was the same craft, he abode with them and wrought,

for by their occupation they were tentmakers. He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath

and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And when Silas and Timothias were come from Macedonia,

Paul was pressed in his spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.

And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment

and said unto them, your blood be upon your own heads.

I am clean from henceforth. I will go into the Gentiles.

And he departed thence and entered into a certain man's house named Justice,

...