Christmas is approaching fast! We set aside December 25th to
remember the day of our Savior’s birth.
In all of the busyness of our often “hijacked holiday,” let us take time
to re-read and learn from, the passages reminding us of what was going on in
the lives of the people involved.
Today I would encourage you to go and reread Luke chapter
1. Think about Zacharias and
Elizabeth. Verse 6 lets us know that
they were righteous. They had faith in
God, as we know from Romans 4 that all who are justified or “declared righteous”
have put their faith in God, both in the Old Testament Times and the New Testament
Times. The also had a daily walk in
their lives in which they were considered blameless when it came to keeping the
Lord’s commands!
It is amazing that they kept this attitude, even when God
had not seemed to grant them their wish of a child. Because of not having a child, they bore the
reproach of people around them (vs.25).
Many people of the day assumed there was a sin problem if God had made
one barren. The statement in verse 6
makes it clear that this was not the case.
In today’s society, I have met many people who give up on their walk of
faith if God, who they look at as a Genie in a bottle, does not grant them
their wishes. As we study the customs of
the priests serving in the temple, we realize that if Zecharias is indeed well
advance in years along with his wife, that he would be approaching retirement age
of 50 as prescribed in Numbers 4:30. The
priests usually only got one opportunity to go in and trim the candles, burn the incense, and offer the blessing on
the people yet he had served many years and never gotten this special
opportunity. Yet, they remained
faithful!
Their faithfulness, as always, was worth it. God would bless them with being the parents
of the one who would come in the “Spirit of Elijah,” as the forerunner of the
Messiah! May we stay faithful no matter
what we face in our walk of faith!
