FROM TODAY'S READING...
Merry Christmas...
“[Mary] is a spiritual model for all who experience the birth of the Savior in their lives because this is a believing question. It is the question that all those who know Jesus have asked: “God, how is it possible?” Do you have this blessed inquisitiveness? Have you asked, “God, how can I experience the life of Jesus within me?”
R. Kent Hughes
Luke, Vol. 1 - That You May Know The Truth
Luke 1:26-35 (NLT) In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”
John 3:16-17 (NIV) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Image: Public Domain (The Annunciation - Henry Ossawa Tanner - Philadelphia Museum of Art)
