Song
Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n and nature sing.
Father, we thank You for Your joy that knows no bound, we are grateful to You for the reason of the season. Glorious God, our heart is melodious and we cannot but burst into rejoicing at the sound of the Angelic voice above.
Father, we are here for You, let the melody in our heart meet with Your Out Stretch Arm to bless us this day Amen. I am practically grateful for crowning the year with the bundle of Joy You delivered to my family yesterday. (My brother was blessed with a baby girl) Thank You Lord.
Beloved, the hand maiden of God before us today was mentioned briefly on our Monday devotional and today we will be looking at her life in totality with reference to her role in during the birth of Christ.
We learnt that she spent her days after the death of her husband serving in the temple night and day with fasting and prayers asking God to grant her the grace to see the messiah. Therefore, we will be considering answers to prayers in two folds, immediate answers to prayers and deferred answers (deferred answers – will be discussed in detail Wednesday next week).
Her request was granted but at her old age. Beloved, I don’t know what you have asking or believing God for from the beginning of this year, looking at the date on the calendar, you might be discourage. Seeing that the year is gone and your prayer is yet to be answered, be encourage, as God answered this daughter of His; so will He also answer your prayers before the end of this year in Jesus Name.
We also learnt from the story before us there are answers to prayer that may not come immediately as we expected it. Do you remember the case of the Hebrew boys, right inside the fire their answers came, so God knows when every of our desires are right and ripe and He will answer us at the right time and exact time.
It’s very possible we have some of our request in this category, let us not be despondent but be hopeful in the Lord for He will surely do for us what we ask of Him. He never fail neither do He change.
Have you been long in your waiting? Be encouraged by this hand maiden of the Lord:
There was also a prophetess, Anna, a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and was a widow for 84 years. She did not leave the temple complex, serving God night and day with fastings and prayers.—Luke 2:36–37
Your faithfulness allows God to reveal greater insight to you than to the less faithful. Faithfulness brings opportunities to you that are not given to the unfaithful. God takes pleasure in answering prayers that come from a faithful heart.
Anna had been a widow for many years. In her day, a widow had little status in society and was virtually helpless on her own. Anna spent her time, day and night, in prayer and fasting in the temple. As she prayed, she yearned to see the Messiah. God chose few people to encounter the Savior when He was born, revealing His Son only to those whose hearts were faithful and pure. Anna was one of those few. Jesus would later say to His followers, “Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear . . . it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matt. 13:16, 11).
Anna continued faithfully in prayer until her prayer was answered. The answer to her prayers did not come immediately. In fact, it came near the end of her life. But God honored her faithfulness. God’s redemptive plan to send the Messiah included answering the prayers of a humble widow.
Faithful praying may mean a lifetime of waiting to receive an answer. God is looking for intercessors who are willing to continue to pray and to believe until they see God’s answer
Are you in that category dear reader? Come and see the worship that is honourable before God. “True worship” the Lord despises not:
But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”—John 4:23–24
We are designed to worship God in spirit and in truth. As Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, He sought to help her do this by imparting to her God’s living water (John 4:13–14).
Jesus sought out this woman personally to give her abundant life. In the same way the Father seeks an encounter with each of us that is real and personal. The Samaritan woman had heard about God; Jesus said true worship must be “face to face” with God. Worship is not religion or ritual; worship is an intimate and vital encounter with a Person. True worship includes the full recognition of who God is: Holy, Sovereign, Almighty, Loving, Merciful. This recognition brings about the realization of our own sinfulness.
True worship is life-changing! It creates within the worshiper’s heart a hatred for sin. True worship results in repentance, obedient submission, and a desire for holiness (Isa. 6:1–8). True worship generates a desire to show mercy and to express forgiveness. It includes a joyful acceptance of all that God has provided by His grace.
True worship is not exclusive. Just as the Samaritan woman rushed off to tell others of her encounter with the Lord, so true worship will compel the worshiper to include others. As a result of this woman’s encounter with Jesus, many others from her village came to know Him as well. The one who has truly worshiped will have a sense of peace and a confident expectation of what God is about to do.
True worship produces a transformed life, reflecting the One who has been worshiped. Are we still together here?
What a transformed life we will experience, when we truly worship God from our inner most being, even those round us we see JESUS through us.
So what have you resolved to do today, intercede till God hear you. Bless those around us especially this festive period, bring Joy to someone life/ home and the Lord will visit you as well in Jesus Name.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
