কোভিড-১৯ এবং আন্তর্জাতিক ডাক পরিষেবা বিঘ্নিত হওয়ার কারণে,
আমরা সাময়িকভাবে আমাদের ‘বিনামূল্যের মুদ্রিত বইয়ের পরিষেবা’ বন্ধ রেখেছি|
আমরা সাময়িকভাবে আমাদের ‘বিনামূল্যের মুদ্রিত বইয়ের পরিষেবা’ বন্ধ রেখেছি|
এহেন পরিস্থিতিতে এই মুহুর্তে আমরা আপনাদের কাছে ডাকযোগে বই প্রেরণে অসমর্থ|
এই অতিমারীর যেন আশু সমাপন ঘটে এবং ডাক পরিষেবার পুনরাম্ভের জন্য প্রার্থনা করুন৷
এই অতিমারীর যেন আশু সমাপন ঘটে এবং ডাক পরিষেবার পুনরাম্ভের জন্য প্রার্থনা করুন৷
Subject 22 : The Gospel According to LUKE
[Chapter 1-8] God’s Love and Saving Grace Bestowed On the Lowly (Luke 1:26-38, 1:45-55)
(Luke 1:26-38)
“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’ But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.’ Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.’ Then Mary said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”
(Luke 1:45-55)
“‘Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.’ And Mary said:
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.’”
The Lord Wants to Be Born in Our Hearts
As we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in this Christmas season, we should remember that the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into the hearts of those who welcome Jesus as their Savior and receive the remission of sins by believing what God said and what Jesus did through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Our salvation from sins is similar to Mary’s conception of Jesus through her obedience. Likewise, in this Christmas season, we should all receive God’s Word into our hearts as Mary did.
Mary didn’t get pregnant by force. She became pregnant by accepting the angel’s message from God and obeying. By accepting God’s Word, Mary could conceive and give birth to the Son of God, the Savior to all human races. This shows that only her faith in God’s Word, not her physical power made the impossible possible. Mary called herself lowly maidservant of the Lord and her heart was ready to obey whatever God said as it was.
Mary said to the angel, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord!” She obeyed God’s Word since she believed the Word of the Lord would be fulfilled exactly as it was said. She accepted God’s Word into her heart by faith. That is how she could conceive Jesus and give birth to Him. The same thing happened when we received the remission of sins by believing in the righteousness of Jesus. We believed when our Lord said He removed all our sins with the gospel word of the water and the Spirit once and for all. In the Old Testament, angels used to deliver God’s messages, but now the righteous people who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit deliver messages from God. The righteous have higher status than angels. The righteous tell people, “Jesus took all your sins away by being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and He was punished for your sins on the Cross. That is why you don’t have any sins.” Through the righteous people, God sends His message that He prepared John the Baptist and Jesus Christ to save us from sins and made us sinless once and for all.
Our Lord wants to be born in our hearts. To do so, He wants to come by the gospel of the water and the Spirit within our faith in God’s Word. Our Lord wants to come into our hearts and eat and drink with us. He wants to live with the believers of the gospel of the water and the Spirit forever. He said He would be with His disciples until the end of the world. We could become God’s people just by confessing our faith in His Word as Mary did. She said that she was a maidservant of the Lord and let it be to her according to His Word. When we believe God’s Word, we can also conceive baby Jesus in our hearts. We can attend Jesus in our heart by holding onto the faith in Jesus Christ, who came by the water and the Spirit. Do you follow me? The Lord is with us regardless of our circumstances.
God Used Mary to Fulfill His Righteousness
Mary was only a lowly maid before she conceived the Lord. Today there are people who pray to Mary. They worship her as if she were God. They pray to Mary, “Mary, Holy Mother of God, pray for us all.” They insist that Mary is the Mother of God because she is the mother of Jesus Christ, the true Son of God. However, she was only a lowly maid before she heard the message from God. When she accepted God’s Word and obeyed by faith, she received the grace of salvation from God. The grace of God came upon her. The angel greeted her saying, “Rejoice, highly favored one.” We have all found favor with God by being saved. God sent us Jesus and remitted the sins of those who believed in the righteousness of Jesus. In other words, God clothed us with His righteousness. The grace of salvation also fell upon Mary. Mary was human like all of us, and she found favor with God by believing in the Word of God.
But some people call her the Mother of God as if God the Father had a wife. From a human perspective people have husbands and wives; but God is Holy and He is not like us at all. He is not a creature. That is to say that God doesn’t have sex like humans do. So Mary is not God’s wife. Luke 1:35 reads, “And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, He will be called the Son of God.’” This verse continues to say, “The power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”
We should know that this verse fulfills God’s covenants from the Old Testament to take all sins. It is referring to the fact that Jesus would be born in the flesh of man through Mary’s body, go through the same human experiences such as being in the womb for ten months before birth, and when He turns thirty years old He would be baptized by John the Baptist who was a descendent of the High Priest Aaron. God said this to come into this world in a human body later to take our sins as He promised in the Old Testament. God used Mary’s body temporarily to save us from sins of the world as the High Priest of Heaven. In other words, she was an instrument for salvation. The Lord borrowed the Virgin Mary’s body to save us from sins of the world just as we need a hoe to plow field; just as the faith of the righteous is needed to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit; just as God uses us as an instrument of His righteousness in testifying it. God came to this earth in the flesh of man through Mary’s body.
Then why did Jesus have to be born through a virgin? If He had been born the same way humans are born, He would have been born to be a sinner, so He had to be born through a virgin. God used His power and was born to a virgin in order not to be part of the sinful world. If He had been born as a sinner from the beginning, He couldn’t bear the sins of the world as the Lamb of God. So He borrowed the virgin’s body to be the Lamb of God without blemish. This was prophesied through Isaiah seven hundred years before Jesus came to this earth. Isaiah 7:14 says, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.” Jesus’ arrival to this earth through a virgin was prophesied 700 years before the Lord came. Mathew 1:23 says the same thing: “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us.’” Jesus Christ, who is God Himself, was born through a virgin to be with us and to take all our sins on His body by His baptism. Our God used a virgin’s body for a short time to fulfill His salvation work and to save humans from sins. The Lord is telling us this Truth.
God did not choose Mary because she was better than any other women in a fleshly perspective. He chose to be born by her to fulfill His Word as He told Isaiah. The King of kings chose to be born as a mere human through Mary, and saved us from sins of the world. God borrowed the virgin’s body to come to the world and save us from sins. To show His work, God didn’t use any natural ways, but a supernatural way of using a virgin’s body.
Mary in today’s Scripture passage was a common person like us. Of course, she found special favor with God. Why was that? It is because she accepted the angel’s message from God and obeyed it from her heart. This is same as receiving the remission of sins by believing the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Mary also received the remission of sins. She carried Jesus in her womb for ten months and gave birth to him. When Jesus was twelve, Mary lost Jesus on her way back from Jerusalem, but she found Him three days later in the Temple discussing God’s Law with the teachers of the Law. When Jesus said to her, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49), she kept all these things in her heart. She must have reminded herself that Jesus was born to her, but He is the Son of God and the Savior, so He was not her own, but God’s.
Mary believed in God’s Word and visited Elizabeth while she was pregnant with Jesus. Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist at that time. John the Baptist recognized Jesus, and jumped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. That is how Mary and Elizabeth got together.
Elizabeth welcomed Mary in great joy as it is written, “Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’” (Luke 1:42-43) It was Jesus who was in Mary’s womb. God, the Savior was in the womb. She continued to commend Mary for her faith, saying, “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45).
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Mary then prophesied;
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:46-48).
Brothers and sisters, it is true that Mary was blessed. She found a great favor with God because she gave birth to God. Likewise, if the work of the gospel is done through us, we are truly blessed people before God. That is a real blessing. Mary said that God regarded the lowly state of her as a maidservant.
Mary Praised the Righteousness, Justice, Love and Mercy of God
Mary called herself a lowly person. But what do religious people say about her? The Bible clearly says that she called herself a lowly maidservant. She humbled herself thoroughly. She thought it to be a great blessing that the Lord had used such a lowly one like her. As a matter of fact, she was just one of many people who were used preciously by God. She said, “For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name” (Luke 1:49). In this passage, the Mighty One is God. The God of all creation made Himself a fetus in her body by His Word. Jesus Christ would be born through Mary’s body.
“And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation” (Luke 1:50).
Those who can conceive baby Jesus and give birth to Him in their hearts are truly blessed and fearful of God’s Word. God favors those who fear His Words. God works and stays in those who fear Him. Those who do not fear God cannot have God within them. Those who fear God and love Him will see God’s mercy from generation to generation. God’s grace of salvation comes upon those who fear Him.
“He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts” (Luke 1:51).
Our Lord came to this earth and saved those who fear Him, but scattered those who are proud and insolent towards God. God destroys those who challenge God with arrogant thoughts. According to a legend, it is said that Pontius Pilate became insane after he handed Jesus over to be crucified, and he died insane. God also punishes those who harass God’s people. Even though Jesus was born to be the Savior, He also judges the proud as the Judge.
The baby Jesus in Mary’s womb is God with all power and authority. God scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts as it is written, “He has put down the mighty from their thrones” (Luke 1:52). God puts down those who misuse their power, authority and fame. If God had not come to this earth, the mighty would have kept the power. When we look at the worldly authorities, they hand down their power to their children and grandchildren. It happens that way because once they seize power, they keep others from taking their power.
However, God puts down the authorities that are too proud and haughty. God punishes them all. The Bible says that Jesus put down the mighty and the proud. Jesus took them away from their comfort zones. The baby that Mary was carrying was this Jesus who is doing this work.
“He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty” (Luke 1:53).
The Lord has filled the hungry with good things. This means He comes to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and strengthen the weak. But He puts down the rich and the mighty and scatters the proud. Jesus who came as a baby did these things on earth.
The Lord has exalted the lowly (Luke 1:52). You never know how God exalts lowly people. I would like to tell you about myself for an example. There is no need to mention anybody else. My life had been very lowly, and I had nothing and nowhere to turn to. How could I live? I had no money. When I tried hard to get on my feet, I got ill. I had a really humble upbringing. I would be a hopeless man if it wasn’t for the Lord and His righteousness.
I came to believe in Jesus in my mid-twenties. I could be saved from sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit ten years after I first accepted Jesus as my Lord. During the first ten years that I believed in Jesus, I didn’t know the gospel of the water and the Spirit and led a wretched life of faith. All I had to do while I was in seminary school was to finish a semester and write a thesis to get my degree of Master of Theology. However, I felt miserable and frustrated about the fact that I didn’t know the Bible well enough to teach. I wasn’t sure what I could do as a pastor even if I had all the qualifications to be one from the world’s perspective.
Then, God told me with His Word in my heart, “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1). I thought, “If God hadn’t ordained me as a pastor, what kind of pastor would I be even if I become an ordained one from my denomination?” I was really miserable. Now I was starting my last semester. Pretending to move into the dorm, I left my home with luggage and wandered around. I thought to myself, “What good is it to go on studying at the seminary school again? Why should I study this last semester for worthless knowledge?” At that time, I was really lowly before God. Nonetheless, God met such a miserable and lowly guy like me with the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit. God visited me with His written Word. Then He lifted up such a lowly person like me. I am telling you God lifted you and me, who received the remission of sins by believing the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
If we had not been such lowly people, there would have been no way for us to be lifted up by God. Brothers and sisters, remember God lifted the lowly. He lifted you and me up high. I am not sure about you, but I have been greatly lifted up. I was a hopelessly miserable person in every way. However, the Lord lifted such a person like me. I truly thank God for this.
“He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty” (Luke 1:53).
That is right. Can any rich man take his money with him when he dies? Life is originally coming and going naked. The Great Alexander once said, “Since I didn’t bring anything when I was born, make sure to drill a hole on my coffin and show my empty hands when I die, so that people can see that I am going away empty handed.” He knew the truth. He knew that he was born naked and he was going to die with nothing on him even though he had so much wealth. So he told other people about the truth.
God sent away the rich empty. On the other hand, He filled the hungry with good things. Brothers and sisters, how good is it to listen to the Word of God and have fellowship in it? It is same as filling our stomachs full.
Brothers and sisters, I want you to listen to the sermons of those who do not really understand the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The more you listen to them, the hungrier you will get. Their sermons never fill you up even if you feed on them for ten years. The first time you listen to them as a new Christian, they seem to be good. But as time goes by, you will get hungrier and hungrier no matter how much you feed on them. If you listen to them for 50 years, you will definitely die of hunger.
Now we became the source of blessings by receiving the blessing of the righteousness of the Lord first. We became the blessed ones who share the blessings with others. We became children of God who have Jesus Christ in our hearts so we can do spiritual work.
Now the world is going to end. Today’s Israelites are still waiting for the promised Messiah in the Old Testament. When they cannot find the Messiah and realize the Messiah has already come, they will come to believe that Jesus Christ is God who came to this earth 2,000 years ago, is their Savior.
They will realize that Jesus, who they handed over to the Roman soldiers about two thousand years ago, was the Son of God and the Messiah who rose from the dead in three days, and now is sitting on the throne in Heaven. They will accept the fact that Jesus had many eyewitnesses of His resurrection. Such historical evidence shows that He is the Savior. Once the Israelites believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the world is going to end. There is nothing else to accomplish.
While God leaves the Israelites in pain and suffering, for them to come back to Him He does one specific thing. There will be the appearance of a politician like a king of the entire world with power to influence the whole world as the servant of Satan. He will unite the world and set up a single government for the world. To have control over every individual, he will put a mark on people’s forehead or on their right hand (Rev 13:16-18). Then people will do whatever he tells them to do. Under his rule, there will be several different kinds of people: One kind of people are believers of God and will not receive the mark; another kind of people believe in God but still receive the mark to survive; the other kind of people do not believe in God but rather believe in the ruler as their savior. By then the righteous will be definitely separated from the sinners.
There will also be numerous martyrs. The Book of Revelation says there will be countless people who believe in the righteousness of God. This is the last harvest. When the time comes, countless believers of the gospel of the water and the Spirit will come back to the Lord. They will be persecuted to death to keep their faith. They will witness God’s righteousness through their death. The Bible says many martyrs will rise solemnly swearing that they do truly believe in God, and then the world will end. Painful but non-terminal diseases will prevail everywhere. Natural disasters will be poured upon every corner of the earth from Heaven. The Bible tells that these things will happen someday.
God will end this world after saving His people for last. Brothers and sisters, this is not science fiction, but reality to come. The age of ideologies has passed as communism has been demolished. Then what is controlling today’s world? It is economic power. It is not the ideology or doctrines but economic power that is in control of everything. A leader will show up in the field of economics, and he will be outstanding in leading the world economy. There has been tacit competition for powers among the world economic organizations such as APEC, EU and NAFTA. APEC was founded for the benefit of Asia-Pacific countries, and EU aims to advance Europe to the world leadership once again. In other words, EU wants to restore Europe to an economic power of the world. NAFTA was established with the intention of keeping the interest of North American countries. But once an economic problem arises, they start to fight against each other and collapse. If one of them gets isolated, the unity and the contract can be broken any time.
So when everything collapses and the world changes, a person who is extraordinary and capable will appear to settle the problems by negotiation. That is how the world will listen to him and depend on him, and everything will become subject to his rule. By then the computer and electronic industries will have been far more developed than now and the functions will greatly increase as well. When the time comes, the single government will make people have tattoos like optical bar codes. Through the barcodes on people he will be able to rule and manage the whole world. One man’s administration will be feasible based on the barcode system.
It is most likely that believers and non-believers will be divided then, and the born again believers will be killed by non-believers if we are still alive. Or, some believers who get special protection from God will be alive to the end. One thing that is certain is that believers, regardless of the quick and the dead, will be lifted to Heaven when our Lord returns. The tombs of the dead believers will be opened and they will come back to life. The Lord will lift them up. The living will be transformed as well before being lifted by the Lord. Doesn’t this sound like fiction to you? If you just think from a human perspective, this is a story in a cartoon. Nevertheless, it will surely happen in the near future.
‘That There Is an End of This Earth’ Is Not a Groundless Sci-Fi Story, but the Sure Thing to Happen
I am telling you this is not a sci-fi story but the truth. You and I must believe this. People haven’t thought about this much. If people ponder this, they may go crazy, so they create other stories that would occupy their minds.
There also was a new generation in the time of Noah. The new generation likes to eat, drink and enjoy their present moments as if there were no tomorrow. As it was back in the Noah’s time, there is a new generation today. That’s why there is no future for humankind. The air, water, economy and every other aspect of life are not getting any better. Actually everything is getting worse. You are living in the most peaceful and fortunate era. Whoever doesn’t believe this will face troubles. But those who believe in this Word will cope with the difficulties to come with faith; they will suffer less when tribulations will actually come. It is because their hearts are ready for any tribulation.
On the other hand, non-believers will suffer far more because they are not aware of anything. Scientists say that the natural resources of the world will have completely run out by 2020 or 2030 at the longest. A lot of people do not believe this, but this will happen no matter if they believe it or not. You should know how much difference there is between believing it and not-believing it. I am not using empty threats. I am warning you to stay alert for the end of this world since the end is sure to come. God might throw these people into the pan of tribulation and fry them alive. God can do so, and He will do it if He decides to do so. The Bible tells us about this. In the end days, we should live by faith to receive God’s protection. God kept the church in Philadelphia safe from the hour of trial (Revelations 3:10), and there are churches that will be kept by God’s special care. But there are also people who will betray God and suffer from tribulations in the end times.
I am sure that those Christians who claim to be sinless without the Word of God’s witness in their hearts are likely to betray God in the end. When they are pressured to get the mark of the Beast, they reluctantly agree to get it, thinking to themselves, “If I don’t get the mark, I cannot take my children to hospital when they get sick, and I cannot buy any food for them. I have received the remission of sins, so God won’t send me to hell just because I have the mark,” even though they know for sure that they are not supposed to get one. Such a man would say to the subordinates of the Antichrist, “Okay! Put the mark while I am sleeping.” Then they would say, “No, this is personal matter. If you do not accept this system, you don’t get the barcode. But if you do, you will get one.” So they finally decide to accept this and get the barcode.
Brothers and sisters, you should believe the fact that there are other things beside the gospel of the water and the Spirit in God’s providence. There is an end to this world, and there will be judgment, and we will live like kings forever in the new world for a thousand years. God will sweep this world and give us new heavens and a new earth for us to live in with Him forever. I also want you to believe that those who are not born again will end up in eternal hell. It is absurd to try to understand God with our small heads; smaller than a pumpkin. That is really laughable. How can we study and understand God with our fist-size brains? Believing in the God’s Church from our hearts is the only way to get closer to God. How can we trust in God by judging Him? All we can do is to trust God’s Word and wait.
So believe this truth. Remember that I am not making empty threats but I am trying to prepare you for the upcoming tribulations. But I am not telling you to pack and leave this world. I am not telling you to get rid of your possessions. I will try to live a more righteous life as the end approaches. Why is that? It is a wise thing to do in the end days.
But if we have plenty of time before the end of this world, I would like to leave behind as many Christian books and literature as possible. If the world doesn’t end so soon and the Lord is coming slowly, we can make the true gospel bloom all over the earth. Just as chrysanthemums have full blooms in autumn, we can make the faith of the genuine gospel bloom all over the place. But that is my wishful thinking and in reality, God’s Word and the current events show the signs of end days clearly. If a disaster happens, a domino effect will follow. So an earthquake can turn this earth into hell on earth even though we are comfortable right now. Simply put, that will be the end of everything.
As you all know, natural disasters are bound to happen for sure. They will get worse as time goes by. So I want you to be prepared for that. Those of us who believe in the Lord should take the Word into our heart and live out our faith. Do you follow me?
Jesus Took All Our Sins with the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit Once and for All
Those who believe in the righteousness of God have no sins. There is no sin with believers. Since Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, our sins were taken over to Him and now we are sinless. Jesus was put on a trial on the Cross and He rose again, is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and will come back. This is what we should know and believe. Whoever doesn’t believe this from the heart is bound to betray the Lord. Only if the Word of God is placed at the center of the heart does it give us the power to do God’s will and not to betray Him.
Brothers and sisters, as the end of the world comes near, we should be more watchful and prayer oriented in every way. I hope you will stay faithful to God by the faith in the Truth. The Lord promised that He would save those who keep the faith when the time of tribulations comes.
In today’s Scripture passage, angel Gabriel appeared before Mary and said, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you.” Brothers and sisters, imagine an angel showed up before you. How surprised must Mary have been then? Let’s look at the passage: “And having come in, the angel said to her, ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’ But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end’” (Luke 1:28-33).
The angel said to Mary, “You have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS” (Luke 1:30-31). Mary didn’t know any men, but God said a baby would be born through her. He said that He would do what He had promised. The Bible says that Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, also became pregnant exactly as she was told. Elizabeth, who gave birth to John the Baptist, was a descendant of the house of Aaron the High Priest. Elisabeth, who couldn’t have babies while she was younger, had a baby in her old age. It was possible by her faith when she accepted the angel’s message.
Mary also became pregnant by accepting the angel’s message. Mary confessed that she was a lowly maidservant of the Lord and she prayed that God’s will might be done. Because she was obedient, Jesus could be conceived in her, grow in her womb and be born to this world. By accepting God’s word Mary could conceive Jesus and give birth to Him.
What Mary did to conceive Jesus is same as what we do to receive Him in our hearts. God doesn’t send angels to us as He did with Mary, but He talks to us through His servants: “I removed all your sins like this. You are God’s children and His people.” God shows His plans through His Word and becomes conceived in us. When we accept God’s Word for salvation, He will adopt us as His children. Just as Jesus is the Son of God, He will make us equal children. As we celebrate Christmas, we should ponder on this truth deeply and realize it.
Mary was a virgin who had never slept with a man. Then how could she have a baby? How could she give birth to Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah and the Savior? Please bear in mind that Mary believed what the angel told her. She could conceive Jesus and give birth to Him by her faith in the Word.
You can also become God’s children and share the gospel of the water and the Spirit by accepting God’s Word into your hearts. True salvation starts from accepting God’s Word, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, by faith. It is the expression of God’s love and the gift of salvation.
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