Just imagine if Mary had said ‘no!’  Where would that have taken us with nativity plays?  I have no idea.  Thankfully though, her humility was so pure that her level of trust allowed her to take on something that she must have had questions about.

Our Father has the same great desires for each of us.  You won’t all become pregnant with a real child, though some will of course.  However, we are all ‘pregnant’ with a dream from God.  We all ‘carry’ something that has been entrusted to us by our Heavenly Father, which He intends to come to full term.

Do you know what it is for you or do you have difficulty believing that it is even true?  It seems to me that the key is to go back to the word ‘every’.  If we can encounter God in His word and come away believing more of it than we did before, it seems to me that we are on the right path.

Zechariah had a different response to the visitation of an angel than Mary did.  He wanted to know if he could trust this messenger from God and he wanted a sign. What Gabriel had told him previously can, so I am informed, be legitimately translated as ‘the prayers you no longer pray have been answered’.  That’s staggering.  Zechariah had believed that God had a purpose for his life but because he had not seen it realised yet he had stopped asking for it.

I do that, do you?  I get excited about something that I believe God for and when it doesn’t happen in my time frame I get discouraged, my insecurities try to overwhelm me and then I have a choice.  Do I continue to trust in every word that God has spoken or do I trust in something else?

God’s heart is tender to us

Zechariah got his sign, the sign of silence.  He couldn’t speak until after his son was born.  When he did speak again it was clear that he had learned something important through his enforced silence, “the splendour light of Heaven’s glorious sunrise is about to break upon us in holy visitation, all because the merciful heart of our God is so very tender”. (Luke 1:78 TPT)

God’s heart is tender to us and his desires for us to ‘give birth to’ Heaven’s wonderful purpose on the Earth has a simple key, believe what He has spoken.

This Christmas, may we all encounter Jesus so beautifully that believing His words becomes easier and easier.  Happy Christmas City Church.