An Oldie But A Goodie

To have greater worship, we must renew our minds and remind ourselves of who God is.   ~~~   In Luke’s gospel, an angel has announced to Elizabeth and Zechariah that they would have a son who would prepare the way for this King. His name would be John the Baptist. The same angel, Gabriel, appeared to Mary and told her that she would have a son and his name would be Jesus. When Mary learns about her supernatural pregnancy, and also the pregnancy of her relative Elizabeth, she loads up and makes the 100+ mile journey to see Elizabeth. When Mary walks through the door Elizabeth erupts into a song celebrating the fact that God was fulfilling His promise. After Elizabeth gets through singing, Mary takes a turn and she sings a song, found in Luke 1:46-55. And through her song I think we can learn what it means to worship and magnify the Lord. One of the things we notice, we see that her mind and heart were filled with God’s word. Within Mary’s song, we see the fingerprints of several passages of OT scripture. Luke 1:50 Psalm 103:17 “The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him…” Luke 1:51 Psalm 89:10 “you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.” Luke 1:52 2 Samuel 22:28 “You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.” Luke 1:53 Psalm 107:9 “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” We see that young Mary’s life was filled with scripture. You get this sense that once Elizabeth expressed praise for what God was doing and accomplishing, Mary caught on and this song of praise just flew out of her mouth. But here is the thing I want us to take away. Mary didn’t sit down with a Bible concordance and compose this song. She didn’t spend hours crafting the lyrics of her praise song. This was an overflow of truth from her heart. Mary didn’t just have scripture memorized. What God said in His word was the hope of her life. She lived and trusted the scripture. She knew what the OT taught about God and His promises, faithfulness and power, and she believed them. Do you wonder why our worship of God is often times half-hearted? Why it’s not intense and full and vibrant? I sometimes think it’s because we only know a little bit of what God says about Himself. We only believe a little bit because we only know a little bit. And it’s not because we are unable to comprehend the greatness of who He is, but rather, we are unwilling. We are undisciplined. But when we are renewing our minds with God’s word, He will receive the worship due Him from us. I’m praying that this Christmas you can say with Mary, “My soul magnifies the LORD.”