Day 4 of Our Christmas Devotional

Wednesday-Day 4

Today we are exploring the question: "How did He come?" Our text to read and mediate upon is found in:

Luke 1:26–38 (KJV 1900)

²⁶And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

²⁷To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

²⁸And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

²⁹And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

³⁰And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

³¹And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

³²He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

³³And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

³⁴Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

³⁵And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

³⁶And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

³⁷For with God nothing shall be impossible.

³⁸And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

The first item that comes to my attention is that the means by which Jesus was to come was that the Holy Ghost overshadow a virgin. Yet this was not any virgin she is described by two important phrases: she is highly favored and the Lord is with thee (28, 30, 35)! These are linked together. The Lord being with her was dependent upon her being highly favored. Her position of being favored has come because of her keeping herself pure, that is a virgin. Yet it is not just her physical body that has been kept clean but her spirit. She has a spirit of humility (46-48). Along with a clean pure body and spirit there is a spirit of obedience and trust. She does not understand the how (29, 34) yet she trusts the what! The word that is spoken she accepts. Her acceptance of the word allows the miracle to proceed.

These principals must still be followed today if we are to be able to see the Lord to come to our church and home. For the church to be impregnated with revival, growth and harvest we too must keep our spirits and bodies pure. Our purity comes from our righteous living which is based upon our separation from our world.  God's favor is needed to be able to see a great move of God in the end times. A Holy God desires a Holy people (1 Peter  1:15-16) to be the conduit to bring Jesus to our world. We must submit to the spoken Word of God and allow the Word to control our spirits and actions which will cause us to become the people who have the Spirit flow through them to our world.