A Season of WaitingSample

Mary's song of praise

How often do we sell ourselves short? How often do we tell ourselves we can’t do something? We aren’t qualified enough, old enough, good enough? Moses made excuses. So did Gideon. They told God they couldn’t because they weren’t good enough. Yet, when the Angel came to Mary, she asked one thing: ‘How can this happen?’

In her heart, Mary knew the limitless power and mercy of the Lord. Mary did not tell the angel she wasn’t good enough. She didn’t tell the angel to pick someone else. In verse 45, Elizabeth tells Mary, ‘You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what He said’ (NLT). And Mary was strengthened by that belief, through everything that followed, and she finally looked at the face of her baby, Jesus, lying in a manger, reliant on her, the woman God had blessed.

It is in Christ we find the fullness of our worth. The apostle Paul tells us that we all fall short of the glory of God. We are all sinners. We are all broken. Am I good enough? No. Not even close. And yet, Jesus lifts me up. In Him and through His love, I am a new creation.

Christmas is a time of rejoicing. Rejoicing in the gift of the baby in the manger, the baby the shepherds came to see, the baby the wise men travelled so far to visit, the baby who grew into the man who chose to die on that cross so we could have the ultimate gift, a relationship with God who says to us, yes, in Christ, you are good enough. It is through His love, His amazing grace, that I’m made righteous. Through Him, my ‘No, I can’t’, becomes ‘Yes, I can’.

Written by Chris Parfoot