Favor of God

2 min read

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Luke 1:38

Mary was one who had “found favor with God” (1:30), and it is helpful for us to understand why that was so. Whenever we encounter Mary in the Scriptures, we see her childlike faith on display.

When the angel told her that she would conceive a child, she understood that to mean it would happen right away, not in some distant future. And here her concern was not so much that she would conceive and give birth to the Messiah, but that she was a virgin. In other words, she was concerned that she remain pure and holy in God’s sight.

And when the angel explained that she would remain pure because her conception would be supernatural and achieved by the Holy Spirit, her response was total surrender and readiness to obey: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”

If only I were so ready and willing to surrender and obey, how much more could the Holy Spirit use me to fulfill God’s purpose?

And if our churches were filled with more people who were so ready and willing to surrender and obey, how much more different would this world be? How much closer would we be to Jesus’s return?

The more I grow and mature, the more I’m beginning to understand that what God desires is a childlike faith and simple obedience. May I be more like Mary.

Father, You are kind and patient with me. Help me to grow in my faith and maturity so that I would be ready and willing to surrender and obey You every day, every moment. In Jesus’s name. Amen.