Luke 1:24-25 – December 3rd, 2020
Luke 1:24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
Promise Fulfilled! God promised Elizabeth a child, even though she was too old. And if God promised, God delivered, literally. Elizabeth gave birth to a son named John, the one who will announce that the kingdom of God has come to earth through the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
And for 5 months, she kept it to herself. The best thing a Hebrew woman could do was to have children. That might not be the case in our culture, but it was in the Hebrew culture. After years of Elizabeth dealing with the fact that she could not give birth, she did. And how did she react? She kept it to herself for 5 months.
Let me ask you. Are there promises from God to you that if you would tell people, they would look at you like you’re crazy?
God promises me, that if I believed in His Son, he would give me eternal life.
God promises me, that if I would love Him and then love my neighbor as much or more than I love myself, then he would bless me.
I had a neighbor who asked me to stop parking my old red pickup in MY driveway because whenever his wife looked out her bedroom window, that’s what she saw. That made her feel like she was living in a motel room. I laughed and then wanted to tell him to tell her how crazy she was. But instead, God reminded me, love my neighbor as myself. So I told him, you know what? No big deal. I’ll park on the street.
Now that’s a very minor thing, and most people don’t understand why I didn’t tell him that it’s my property and I can do what I want on my property. And they would be right, by man’s standards. But by God’s standards, in order to love my neighbor, I parked on the street.
This event might not be like giving birth to John the Baptist, but it is a reminder of a promise that if I would be faithful to God in the small things, then He will be faithful to me with the big things.
God has blessed me with this event, because it’s such a small thing, it shows that God promises, and then he delivers. Literally!