Be It Unto Me According To Your Word

Let this Christmas and New Year be a time when the risen Jesus activates your hopes and dreams! Don’t let fear and unbelief rob you of following the exciting plan and purpose God has for your life.

At Christmas, we enjoy celebrating the birth of Jesus. For this event to have taken place, God had to put His faith in mankind. In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, we read that the angel Gabriel’s first words on two occasions were, “Do not be afraid!” When Gabriel said these words to Mary, the reaction was faith but when he spoke to Zacharias the response was fear and unbelief.

Zacharias and Elizabeth were both well advanced in years and by all natural evidence there was no hope for a child. In their culture, there was a tremendous stigma attached to being without children, especially for women, and it may well have been thought that their predicament was the ‘judgment of God’ for some sin they had committed. The sad thing about the unbelief of Zacharias is that there were several examples of supernatural births in the Old Testament. God was not promising to do something for Zacharias and Elizabeth that He had not done for others before them. Abraham and Sarah had a son in their old age, as did the parents of Samson. Zacharias was not asked to believe in something entirely new, like the virgin birth, only that he and his wife would have a son in their old age.

The words we speak have the power to produce faith or fear in our lives. When Zacharias demonstrated that he had fear and unbelief, the angel Gabriel not only rebuked him, but struck him dumb. This certainly stopped him speaking out his unbelief!

I believe that Luke’s record of the angelic announcements to Zacharias and to Mary provide us with a study in contrasts. Zacharias was a man; Mary a woman. Zacharias and Elizabeth were elderly; Mary was young. Zacharias and Elizabeth were married; Mary was a virgin. Zacharias doubted the angel’s message; Mary believed.

In Elizabeth’s sixth month, Gabriel appeared to Mary, announcing that she would miraculously bear a child who would be Israel’s Messiah. Her child would be great in the sight of God, called the ‘son of the Most High’ and he would ‘reign forever on the throne of his father David’ (Luke 1:32-33)

Although Mary had a request of the angel Gabriel as well, her request was not for a sign but for clarification. Zacharias wanted some kind of proof that he and his wife would have a child in their old age. Mary wanted clarification as to what she was to do in order to cooperate with the purposes of God. She wished to learn how her conception would be achieved, since she was a virgin. She was asking for clarification, not confirmation. There is a world of difference between her request and that of Zacharias. Hers stemmed from her faith; the question of Zacharias stemmed from his lack of faith.

Gabriel explained to Mary that she would not need to do anything, that the conception in her womb would be the result of God’s miraculous intervention. As a further word of encouragement to Mary, Gabriel informed her that her elderly relative, Elizabeth, was in her sixth month of pregnancy, which bore testimony to the fact that nothing is impossible with God.

Mary’s response is a marvellous testimony to her faith in God and her submission to His will:

“Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

Don’t let fear stop you seeing your God given hopes and dreams come alive!