God's Will and God's Timing
This morning our men's Bible study started on the Luke's narrative of the life of Jesus. Luke does not start with the birth of Jesus. He starts with the birth of John, the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. We had 12 men even on this holiday Monday. I believe we had a meaningful study as we considered God's plan for Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth.
It is amazing to think of how God always preserves a remnant of faithful believers even in the periods when the faith of many is waning. Zacharias and Elizabeth were righteous before God and blameless in all of His commands. This is a wonderful testimony when most Jewish people had started to just practice empty rituals, instead of a relationship with the Living God through faith. However, inspite of their righteousness and the fact that they were both of the priestly line, God had seen fit to allow Elizabeth to remain childless. Now, they we both advanced in years, so they were losing hope in having a child. This was a terrible reproach in those days for a couple. The belief was that God was punishing a childless couple for some sin. It must have been very confusing for Zacharias and Elizabeth as they loved God and served Him fervently, but they were ridiculed by the people all around them.
This shows us an important truth. Just because we are right with God does not mean everything works out the way we want it to work out. It does not meant that God will not allow us to suffer. Instead, God may be working out a greater blessing for us in His will and His timing. In this case not only did they have a son in a miraculous way, since they were too old to physically have a child. They were privileged to be the parents of John, the Baptist. Now, this was not a virgin birth like Jesus, but it took the supernatural blessing of God for this to happen. What a wonderful blessing! God heard their prayer for a son, but He did it His way and in His time. Don't you think they were pleased that God did it His way? I think in the end they could see that God's way was best. We need to be the same way. We must not try to force our expectations on God. We must submit to His will, because His way is always better than ours, especially when we are faithful to follow Him in a blameless way. He delights in blessing us.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Genesis 49-50 and Matthew 13:31-58.
It is amazing to think of how God always preserves a remnant of faithful believers even in the periods when the faith of many is waning. Zacharias and Elizabeth were righteous before God and blameless in all of His commands. This is a wonderful testimony when most Jewish people had started to just practice empty rituals, instead of a relationship with the Living God through faith. However, inspite of their righteousness and the fact that they were both of the priestly line, God had seen fit to allow Elizabeth to remain childless. Now, they we both advanced in years, so they were losing hope in having a child. This was a terrible reproach in those days for a couple. The belief was that God was punishing a childless couple for some sin. It must have been very confusing for Zacharias and Elizabeth as they loved God and served Him fervently, but they were ridiculed by the people all around them.
This shows us an important truth. Just because we are right with God does not mean everything works out the way we want it to work out. It does not meant that God will not allow us to suffer. Instead, God may be working out a greater blessing for us in His will and His timing. In this case not only did they have a son in a miraculous way, since they were too old to physically have a child. They were privileged to be the parents of John, the Baptist. Now, this was not a virgin birth like Jesus, but it took the supernatural blessing of God for this to happen. What a wonderful blessing! God heard their prayer for a son, but He did it His way and in His time. Don't you think they were pleased that God did it His way? I think in the end they could see that God's way was best. We need to be the same way. We must not try to force our expectations on God. We must submit to His will, because His way is always better than ours, especially when we are faithful to follow Him in a blameless way. He delights in blessing us.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Genesis 49-50 and Matthew 13:31-58.