“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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