Luke 1 ~ The Tender Mercy of our God

 

 

Luke 1

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us

It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah,of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the Temple of the Lord and burn incense.

 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 

11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 

16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 

19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. 

I stand in the presence of God, 

and I was sent to speak to you 

and to bring you this good news. 

 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak 

until the day that these things take place, 

because you did not believe my words, 

which will be fulfilled in their time.” 

21 And the people were waiting for Zechariah, 

and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 

 And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them

 and they realized that he had seen a vision in the Temple. 

And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. 23 And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

24 After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 

“Thus the Lord has done for me 

in the days when He looked on me, 

to take away my reproach among people.”

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 

28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, 

the Lord is with you!” 

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 

30 And the angel said to her,
 “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,

 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, 

and of his kingdom 

there will be no end.”

34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, 

and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. 

 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 

38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; 

let it be to me according to your word.”

And the angel departed from her.

39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit

And she exclaimed with a loud cry,

 “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 

 And why is this granted to me 
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, 
the baby in my womb 

leaped for joy. 

45 And blessed is she who believed 
that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her

 from the Lord.”

46 And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God

 my Savior,

for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant.

For behold, 

from now on 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 for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones

and exalted those of humble estate;

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 offspring forever.”

56 And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 

58 And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, 60 but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” 

61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” 

62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. 

63 And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. 64 And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 And fear came on all their neighbors. 

And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, 66 and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit 

and prophesied, saying,

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

for He has visited and redeemed His people

and has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of His servant David,

as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old,

that we should be saved from our enemies

and from the hand of all who hate us;

to show the mercy promised to our fathers

and to remember His Holy Covenant,

the oath that He swore to our father Abraham,

 to grant us

that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

might serve Him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness before Him 

all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare His Ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to His people

in the forgiveness of their sins,

Because of the tender mercy 

of our God,

whereby 

the sunrise shall visit us 

from on high

 

To give Light to those who sit in darkness

 and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet 

into 

the way of peace.”

1 Corinthians 16:7 

 For I do not want to see you now and make only a passing visit;
 I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits.

 Proverbs 10:12 

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

1 Corinthians 13:13 

So now faith, hope, and love abide,
 these three; but the greatest of these is love. 

John 13:34-35

 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

 1 John 4:19 

 We love because he first loved us. 

♔ Lord Jesus Saves †

Thank You Lord Jesus 

Psalm 1 ~ Delight

 

Psalm 1

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

His delight is in the law of the LORD, 

and on his law 

he meditates day and night. 

He is like a tree planted by streams of water 

that yields its fruit in its season, 

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 

5 Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, 

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 

6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, 

but the way of the wicked will perish.

When God says, "No withering, all prosperity." 

I'd have to tell you - in my childhood, my family planted 6 tiny trees to grow into massive trees in my childhood, newly, built house in the 1960s. The Trees met different fates. One hit a chalk rock in the soil and died.

One was stunted to just never grow. It sat while the other trees grew 40 and 50 feet tall. My father and I would look at the Oak tree and wonder. Maybe it's because it's near the swing set, and it thinks it should be a child tree. My father said, could be, it needs iron, it looks a little yellow. So iron was applied. Perhaps, it needs water. Or it's a dwarf. My father went to the library and said no such tree variety. We wondered if it was a variation of the regular tree variety, and we should propagate it. 

My brother was born. My father said maybe the tree, arborist, people should see the Oak Tree. That year it grew some in the spring. A lot, about 3 feet on the 10 feet of a 16-year-old tree. And the next year, it doubled. Now.... we started complaining about how to move the swing set. People! 

And in the next four years, we were telling bored people about the amazing growth of the tree. Uh-huh. And if someone showed up who knew about the dwarf Oak Tree, we all got very, very excited and the story went on and on.

Knowing Jesus,

I think Psalm 100 is never, ever, ever intended 

to make us feel poorly about seasons in our lives. 

I do not believe Jesus would tell us a Psalm story 

and, then, say ... and then there is ... - - - you.

Sea of Galilee looking East

We'd assume the trees in the photos were Psalm 100 - never hit by drought, fire, famine, beetles, disease and timber harvest, bird feeders with nails and screws, girdling/mulching the tree, staking the tree, concreting the holes, over fruitfulness, tying an animal's leash to the trunk, power lines, overcrowding, over salt/pesticide. The tree has a very 'Jabez' life. Blessed and nothing to report.

Instead, these are possibly the Tree of Life, Trees of Heaven. Perhaps it is us, learning to use our Spiritual Gifts, hopefully becoming the Spiritual Tree of Heaven, the Parable of Jesus.

Using the gift, but then not fully understanding the gift

I was at a lovely and large, fairly dressy, engagement/wedding party in 1991.

There were about 75 people and a man came up to me to give me - - -  the Christian Prophetic Word. The 35-year-old man started out telling me facts correlating with my life at present, with my living grandmother, and thoughts for far down the road. Conversations and things a charlatan, would find out and repeat, but we were strangers.  Then the message became harsh. He snarled with sarcasm and said we would not be friends. It surely was a drastic, temperature change.  And in fact, what he had to say, came to be true within 30 years.

As the evening closed, about eleven p.m., his friends were saying, he just loved to find believers and pump them up with false prophecies. He said he loved to do prophecies to people who are Christian because of the utter belief on their faces. I asked him how he could pick out a believer - you know - he had, absolutely, no response and for a moment became speechless and shrugged.

He was so uncomfortable - he pointed at a pal and said, "Remember the time, I said that to Robin, and, unbelievable, it came to be true!  And two or three of his other friends, laughed in after the party wine glow - in the kitchen laughed so loudly - and remembered other times, the joking "prophetics" came to be true!!! Hilarious.  It was so memorable to see these men, sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by working caterers and not knowing they were in the way of the caterers.  Talking about creating scenarios for fun.  The caterers were dodging them to work.

 We went to another entirely different engagement/wedding party, given by my mother

A young couple arrived and said they were the heirs to the local milk farm (we lived in a huge city.)

I could tell they were telling about being wealthy and people were melting all over them. I was having a conversation with an old friend, and this was much more fun. Later in the evening, I was introduced to them and came to find out they were saying their fortune was from the Dairy Huge, Huge Farm belonging to my mother's good high school friend.  

I called out to my mom to come and meet them. 

I said, "That's great, you are the child of ----. You must love Santa Fe!!! How fortunate you are to spend so much time in your new house there! Tell me all about Santa Fe!!!"

 The whole room became aware by their utterly horrified faces - this was Not True At All. 

And the pretenders promptly departed in about 1.5 minutes. 

I don't know whatever happened to the good-looking 35-year-old prophetic guy. But the pretenders were good friends of friends and were said to have settled down and done quite well in life - not pretending to be other people again. Interesting.

Look at that: One group found it hysterical a man goes around compelled to give "prophecies." Which turned out to be true. 

The other group pretended to be wealthy, and they ran like the Police would be called.

It's funny how we respond to the gifts God gives us - because what he said to me is absolutely true. He responded to an urge to prophesy and not care about the soul or the emotion of what he puts down. 

That gift can be prophetic and even self-prophetic in the absence of Spiritual mercy and the desire to shelter or pray.

When you are in the room with Believers of Jesus Christ, they will tell you of answered prayer. Warm assurances when faith is needed. Miracles that just become part of life. Prayer requests. Dreams led them to peace and a new understanding of their soul to Jesus. And if you know them well, they will tell you if they actually hear Jesus. Some people are blessed, like Abraham.

I knew a very, very bible study and a virtuous woman cried out to God and asked Him about misfortune. He replied with what was then learned to be Psalm 50. And that was VERY UNLIKELY. "It came to pass." The phrase occurs again and again in the Old Testament. "It came to pass after four hundred and thirty years that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt," and, "It came to pass."


I believe that to God - Peter had a pretty good idea. And just as shade trees begin to give us thoughts about patios and hammocks, cushions and places to read and bbq - we have this:

2 Peter 3:8-9

Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice:

 With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 

9 The Lord is not slow 

to fulfill His promise 

as some understand slowness, 

But is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, 

but everyone 

to come to repentance.

Revelation 2:7

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right 

to eat from the tree of life, 

which is in 

the paradise of God.

Revelation 22:2

Down the middle of the great street of the city. 

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, 

bearing twelve crops of fruit,

 yielding its fruit every month. 

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 22:14

Blessed are those who wash their robes, 

that they 

may have the right 

to the tree of life 

and may 

go 

through the gates 

into the city.

Redemption. Sweet, beautiful little girls grow into unlikely teenagers. Drug addicts recover. Sponsors make wonderful friends. Grandmothers come from the wise, who remained with solutions. Old men tell young men. Young men listen to middle-aged men who listen to older men.

Abba, Father,

Let the Circle Be Unbroken

Lord 

And it came to pass.

To live and move and have our being

in

Jesus Christ the Lord.

When the Liturgy Prayer cycle says

this is the week to pray for Israel,

the Church of Jerusalem and priests

and laity. The week of Israel is attacked, horribly.

When the daily prayer is a Compline Collect:

Be our light in the darkness,

O Lord,

and in your great mercy 

defend us from all perils

and dangers of this night,

for the love 

of your only Son, 

our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The evening we make the evening news preempt broadcast

for a Tornado Warning with almost inch sized hail.

For our neighborhoods.

And we are safe indeed. 

We come together to pray 

and ask You to be present, 

hear this prayer, please,

in Jesus Christ.

Dwell in me,

Dwell in us,

Dwell in those we Love,

Help us to seek You first.

And we will finish well, in Jesus Christ. 

Help us to find and bring

to become

 more Heaven

to this earth.

Your Plan, Your way,

Your Son is best.

Establish us on your path,

help keep us near You

and on the path.

Your Wonderful Plan.

You Include All in Your Plan.

Encourage us in Love

Encourage us with Your Joy.

Jesus, teach us to follow You

more closely in Your Word.

Correct us in Your Love

to remain with You.

Help us when the path isn't seen

Protect us to remain with You.

Your Love is

where I want to be.

Forgive me for my 

flaws, weakness and sin.

Because You are God of Love

and I need you in my life.

Help us with our needs

today

and You will help us tomorrow as well.

Bless Israel with peace,

Bless families with living, loving hearts,

Reawaken God being first.

Bless this Nation.

Bless the Nations who need You.

In Jesus,

Amen.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves †

Lord Jesus