18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[b] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[d] (which means “God with us”).

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

There are several practical things that we, as Christians, can learn from this passage.

When Joseph faced an unexpected complication in life, his first reaction was to attempt to handle it himself.  He planned to secretly send Mary away, to avoid public humiliation. The Bible says that Joseph was a righteous man, but it does not say that his first reaction was to go to God in prayer about the situation. We need to keep this in mind: no matter how big our problem may seem, our first response should be to go to God and trust Him to see us through.

Another truth we learn from this passage is that God can turn what we view to be a problem into a wonderful answer; an answer that is most usually better than we even imagined it could be.

We should trust God in the good times and the tough times; He knows the beginning and the end and everything in between. In this passage, God turned Joseph’s problem (from Joseph’s perspective) into the Salvation of the world. God is ready, willing, and able to take care of us in our time of need also. (Driskell, 2015).

Devotion by Tammi Zaidel