Great and very precious promises.
Enjoying God: Part 1 (7)
And Mary said:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior…
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.” Luke 1.46, 47, 54, 55
Too small, too weak
Christians do not escape the influence of the spirit of the age. Like many of our wrong-believing counterparts, we tend to hear and act upon only what seems to be of immediate benefit to us, and only for the moment. We know that we believe in Jesus and that we’re going to heaven when we die. Or at least, that’s what we believe. What we say we believe.
And for too many of us that’s quite good enough. We fulfill our Christian duties by our participation in church, and we regard ourselves as morally a notch higher on the decency scale than those who do not have faith in Jesus. We don’t aspire to much more than this because we have found this satisfies what we feel as our need for faith, and it allows us to pursue our material and entertainment indulgences with a relatively clear conscience.
We believe in Jesus, but we also believe in getting the most out of all the things this world offers. If we have little inclination to work at spiritual disciplines or bear witness to our co-worker, or for thinking about how our faith should impact the culture and times in which we live, it’s because our view of the faith is already at the “good enough” level, and we don’t sense a need for anything more. C. S. Lewis wrote, concerning a previous generation, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (Weight of Glory).
Too. Easily. Pleased.
The problem, Lewis explained, is that we do not know the promises of God: “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.”
And this is one reason why Christians today do not enjoy the Lord any more than they do.
Consider Mary
Mary had just been visited by an angel, an experience fraught with not a little consternation (Lk. 1.30). The angel told her she had found favor with God and that she would give birth to the next and final King of the throne of David. His Kingdom, the angel explained would never end (v. 33).
Mary was puzzled and no doubt a little shaken by this. How could this be? But she wasn’t doubting; she was merely inquiring about the mechanics of it all (v. 34).
Then the angel dropped the bomb: “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” (v. 35). Incredible. Impossible. Mysterious. Terrifying. Amid what must have been affections swelling and clashing like waves in a storm, Mary issued two responses to this news. First, she submitted to the Word of the Lord (v. 38). And then she rejoiced in the promises of God (vv. 46, 47, 54, 55).
In the announcement of Jesus’ birth, Mary saw the ancient promises God had made to His people about to be fulfilled. And the thought of those promises coming to term filled her with joy, the joy of the Lord.
Which promises?
When we think of the promises of God, two stand out. We are promised that our sins are forgiven, and that we will go to heaven when we die. And those are two very real, very important promises. Cling to them.
But these are not the promises that set Mary to rejoicing. She saw in the birth of Jesus the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, what He had spoken to the fathers of Israel (v. 35). The promises made to Abraham included the mercy of forgiveness and the hope of eternal life. But they are more, and they are aimed at the here and now in Jesus, and they are promises offered to all who believe in Him (Rom. 4.16).
What are these promises that brought Mary—and Zachariah (Lk. 1.67-75)—such joy?
We must be brief as we consider Genesis 12.1-3. God has promised to make His people a great nation, large in scope, greater than all the nations of the world combined. Not just a gaggle of individuals, but a nation, a unified body with one purpose and one King (v. 2). God promised to bless us, that it, to maintain us in a right relationship with Himself, to know His favor continually and to lack in nothing we needed to meet our needs and fulfill our purpose (v. 2). He said He would make our name great (v. 2), that is, that we would have significant influence over others—what they believed, how they thought, what their priorities were, how they lived—and that He would enable us to be a blessing to others, so that they could know the blessings of the Lord (v. 2). He promised to protect against those who did not look favorably upon us (v. 3) and that He would extend His blessings through us to all generations and families of the earth—every culture, tribe, society, and age.
This is what Mary envisioned, the promises of God being fulfilled by the coming of Jesus. This is what she saw, and it gave her great joy.
When the promises we see, we desire, we live toward, talk about, work for, encourage others by, and study to learn more about each day—when these are our promises, then we, too, will know the joy of the Lord and we will enjoy Him truly, precisely as He intends.
Search the Scriptures
1. Read Genesis 12.1-3. How do you expect to see those promises fulfilled in your life?
2. Meditate on 2 Peter 1.2-4. What did God expect those promises to do in us? Is that what’s happening in you?
3. As Mary understood, all the ancient and very precious promises of God are fulfilled in Jesus (2 Cor. 1.20). What are the implications of that for your daily walk with and work for the Lord?
Next steps—Preparation: Memorize Genesis 12.1-3. Include these promises in your prayers each day, and begin seeking ways to claim them throughout the day ahead.
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
How should joy affect our lives as Christians? Our booklet, Joy to Your World!, can show you how both to know more of the Lord’s joy and to invite others into it as well. Order your copy by clicking here.
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
