Unwrapping Christmas - Viewing the Nativity Through Luke's EyesSample

Day 4

There was in the days of Herod…a certain Priest named Zacharias…His wife…was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.  Luke 1:5-6

Truthfully, there aren’t too many of us who would call ourselves righteous. Me? I am zip, nada, zilch in this category. How about you? Yet, Zacharias and Beth hold this righteous distinction in the way they lived their lives.

What does it mean to live righteously? In this passage, the New Testament Greek word, Dikaios, means living uprightly and being virtuous. This word describes someone who conducts their life wholly transformed and conformed to the character of God, the only Right One. When we live this way, the enemy has little to trip us up with because he has nothing to hold onto. Ponder this last sentence a little while.

Yet, it just seems so hard. Right? But God. That two-word Bible phrase describes His intervention. Jesus – taking all the chaos of our junk, selfishness, and sin upon Himself so that He could exchange the filthy garments of our lives for His robe of righteousness. 

We can’t do this righteous walk on our own, but the Holy Spirit living within us can. Listen. This is important. Righteous living begins when we realize we can’t get life right without God. It starts when we silence the enemy’s guilt and condemnation in our thoughts,  and then we apply His righteousness as a breastplate from His armor to guard our hearts and emotions. It is His breastplate of righteousness that assures our authority over the devil and his demons in spiritual warfare.

That is what ol’ Zach and Elizabeth did. They didn’t know the Messiah yet, but they trusted He would come. Day by day, they chose to do the next right thing by believing in God and His promises. And, by doing so, they positioned themselves to receive God’s richest blessings upon their lives.