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"Then the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid,
Mary, for you have found favor with God.'"
(Luke 1:30)
This week, we will depart from our Beatitudes study and focus on Christmas. I am preaching a series of messages at Great Hills Baptist Church entitled "No Fear this Christmas." All three sermons will focus on the command to not fear (Luke 1:30, Matthew 1:20, and Luke 2:10). Also, to celebrate Christmas at Great Hills, we just completed three wonderful evenings of blessing our community with a fantastic time of celebration and outreach here on our campus. We felt like the train ride would be a big hit, and guess what? It was! We had three trains running for three hours a night on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We had lots of fun activities for families, and I was so grateful that we were able to provide all of this free to the community. I was blessed to share the gospel twelve times in those three nights, praise the Lord!
With only a couple of weeks until Christmas, I pray that God blesses you and your loved ones in wonderful ways. I am believing God for miracles in your life. May the power of God be released in your life, and may you experience an abundance of joy and peace through the power of our great God.
Here is the biblical context for our focal text of today's devotional, Luke 1:26-30: "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.'"
Gabriel told her to stop being afraid. She was quite frightened by this powerful angel who had been sent by God with this life-changing message.
Our focal text today is the basis for the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci called the "Annunciation", which he painted around AD 1475. The painting is in the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy. Da Vinci has Mary rather composed, but I think she was anything but! She was frightened, and so would you be if visited by an angel. Da Vinci has them both depicted in a calm and serene manner, but I believe Mary had quite the expression of shock and dismay on her face, and I imagine that her heart rate sped up quite a bit!
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