Life's Daily Challenge Devotional

Let it be done to me

"Then Mary said, 'Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word! And the angel departed from her," Luke 1:38.

Dear beloved of God,

God is the Father of all fathers. Before He set the boundaries of time, He created everything that ever would be created. His creation, however was corrupted by man’s choice to know and experience life outside of Himself. His remedy was to place Himself inside of a man. He needed a willing vessel through which to carry out His great plan. He found this person in a woman named Mary.

Mary was used to bring forth the birth of all births. This birth became the focal point of all history, past, present and future. It is actually the birth that gives meaning and purpose to all else that can be born. Through His birth and the redemptive work that would follow it, all of creation can be redeemed. All that God placed within you through Adam can now be released to express His glory.

Mary had an extremely important role to play in the process. God did not force His redemptive vision on Mary. The angel did not announce that she had already been impregnated. God found in her, a willing vessel, and He worked with her to bring His gift into the world. The angel simply announced God's intended will, "You will conceive in your womb and bring forth..." The Word was released. Mary could have easily blocked its entrance into her heart.

She said, "Let it be done to me according to your Word." In that moment of great spiritual intimacy, the Holy Spirit "overshadowed" her. The eternal was implanted within a human being. At the right time, the life within her would be birthed to bring God's redemptive purpose in the earth. Until that time, her job was simply to carry God's gift to the world.

The same thing, perhaps in a less spectacular way, happens to you and me. God announces His intentions to us. This is called vision. God allows a human being a glimpse into what He sees. He speaks His seed into a human heart. We can then choose to surrender fully to God's desire or we can resist Him.

In Hebrew tradition, it was a great shame for a wife to be barren. A blessed wife gave her husband many children. It is much different in our generation.

We dishonor God, and thus dishonor ourselves, when we refuse to carry God's dreams. There are many excuses that we can give to support our "right to choice." Any and all of them will rob us of the fruitfulness of God. Every excuse ultimately boils down to one of two sins. We are either infertile, or we refuse intimacy with our God.

God is angry when His people refuse, abort, or miscarry His desires. He wants us all to carry vision. He is looking to and fro over the earth to find hearts like that of Mary (2 Chronicles 16:9). When He turns to you, will He find you cold and barren, or will He call you "highly favored one"?