Receive Christ and Join God in His Work
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“In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.’ ” (Luke 1:26-28)
Passage: Ephesians 2:8-9
Nazareth was a small town in Galilee. Some estimates suggest the population was only around 400. Mary was a teenager, old enough in the Jewish culture of the day to be pledged in marriage, but well younger than the average age of women being married today. Every Jewish girl would have dreamed of being the mother of the promised Messiah, but no one would have imagined that the Lord would have chosen a teenage girl from an obscure, little town.
When Gabriel appeared to Mary, He told her she was highly favored, and that God was with her. This doesn’t mean that God loved Mary more than any other Jewish girl or that Mary was sinless, nor that she had earned His favor. The tense in the Greek indicated that the action of giving favor, or grace, was something God did without any work on her part. It indicated that she had put her faith in God’s promise of a Messiah and like Abraham, that faith was “credited to her as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) One cannot truly experience Christmas with knowing the Christ of Christmas. Receiving Christ is the first step to a full Christmas and joining God in the work He wants to do in your life.
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