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Thursday, December 12, 2013

A Heart to Believe

“The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.' 'I am the Lord’s servant,' Mary answered. 'May your word to me be fulfilled.' Then the angel left her” (Luke 1:35-38).


Isn't it absolutely amazing that because a young girl named Mary said yes to God that we have a Savior to worship? Can you imagine how she felt when the angel Gabriel appeared suddenly and told her that God had chosen her to give birth to the Savior of the world? And that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and she would become pregnant with God's miraculous promise? Even though her mind might not comprehend, Mary offered a willing spirit of surrender. 


When Gabriel visited Mary, he found a girl whose heart was already full of faith, and ready to believe God’s words. Consider Zechariah, the Priest. He was also visited by the same angel and informed that his barren wife, Elizabeth, would have a baby. Zechariah was a man of the law, and supposedly attuned to God’s voice, but he had trouble believing God’s messenger (Luke 1:13-18). Compare Mary’s faith to that of Zechariah. When Gabriel explained how God would use her, she was in awe of God’s majesty. Mary, an ordinary village girl, had more faith in God than a priest.

Often it is easier for a Christian of a fresh religious experience to exhibit greater faith than a person who has forgotten the miracle of his own changed heart. Mary’s innocent faith believed in the impossible. It was not compromised by the religious attitudes of man or the human explanations of Pharisees. Her faith needed no explanation for Gabriel’s miraculous words.
 
In Mary's young life the promise of the salvation of mankind rested. Is your heart full of Mary’s kind of innocent faith, or has lukewarm religion dulled its luster? God desires your heart to be as Mary’s—easily moved by the Holy Spirit—one that believes in what appears to be impossible—one that says yes to whatever God asks. Nothing is impossible with God. Pray for a heart to believe.

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