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December 24, 2008
For Her to be
Delivered
Don’t you just love how the
King James Version says things? Sometimes, anyway. While Joseph and Mary were
in Bethlehem,
the Bible says that the “days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (Luke
2:6, KJV). Don’t you just love it? “The days were accomplished that she should
be delivered.” What a beautiful way to express the whole concept of what
was happening. We can see three ways that these simple, beautiful words were
fulfilled. First, the time came for Mary to be delivered of her “package “ in
her womb. The time came for her body to be relieved and delivered of the stress
and strain of carrying another person in her. She was delivered of that
encumbrance.
Secondly, the days were accomplished (which is another
whole message) for her to deliver the child within her to the world. The time
unseen was up, now came the time to be revealed. The Divine gift within Mary
was about to be delivered to the world; that gift of God and His very presence
for all who would believe and trust in the work of God in their lives.
The third beautiful fulfillment in the words of the time
coming for Mary to be delivered, is that when Jesus was delivered into the
world, the world, including Mary and Joseph, was delivered also. It was
delivered from bondage to darkness, to sin, and self that had, since the Garden
of Eden, kept humanity in chains. Mary delivered Jesus into the world, and
Jesus delivered Mary and the rest of humanity from the world.
What did Jesus deliver us all from? The most obvious is
the consequences of our sin- eternal death and separation from our Creator and
Lover, God. But there are other areas of bondage from which the Lord Jesus
delivered us with His birth and death. Jesus delivered us from bondage to
Satan, the world, and our very selves.
Satan is the absolute hateful enemy of our souls. He is
out to torment us and keep us in bondage to him, and to destroy us and our
relationship with God. He is the source of all lies. Satan is vanquished, but
he perpetrates the lie that we are still in bondage to him, he tries to get us
to believe that the chains are not gone, the door is not open, and we are not
free to run to our Maker. Jesus, however has freed us from the bondage of sin
and its resulting death, and set us free from the lies of our enemy. Jesus not
only tells the truth, He is the Truth.
The world keeps us in need of deliverance and separate
from God by trapping us into seeing (and therefore living) only in the
physical realm. The world wants to keep us in servitude to the physical, but
Jesus was born to deliver us from that servitude to the physical and bring us
into the freedom of the spiritual, so that we don’t concentrate on the seen,
but on the unseen, where our Treasure and True Life are (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Jesus also was born to deliver us from ourselves. I don’t
know about you, but my self can give me fits if I let it; and before accepting
salvation in Christ, we don’t really realize that we do not have to
allow our selves to give us fits! Jesus delivers us from bondage to our selves,
and frees us to concentrate on God and others.
I have heard many comments the past few weeks like, “the holidays just
stress me out,” or “the holidays are such a difficult time for me”. That is not
how God intended the celebration of the birth of Jesus to be. He announced
“good news” of “great joy” and rejoicing, not stressful news, anxiety, worry,
discontent, etc. However, the world and our selves drive us into making the
birth of Christ a difficult time. We put stress on by thinking we have to make
15 different kinds of cookies, 12 fudges, etc. Now, don’t start thinking that I
am against all those things. I like a clean house and good food, but when we
get into bondage to these things, so our stress maximizes and we only live in
the physical, we need to remember that Jesus delivered us from all of
that.
I lamented recently that my peanut butter, oatmeal,
chocolate chip cookies turned out flat and greasy. I did not want flat and
greasy cookies. I wanted cookies that looked and tasted like Shirley’s or
Mavis’, or Suzan’s! But the Lord had me realize, as I watched my boys carry off
stacks of 5 cookies at a time, that the children eat them anyway, even if they
are flat and too buttery (I was told that was my problem). It was my bondage to
self that caused the covetous envy of my friends’ cookies and my stress. Jesus
came to deliver me from bondage to self, the physical, the confines of the
world, and the father of lies. He was delivered to us to deliver us.
And so, the words of the Word, “ the days were
accomplished that she should be delivered” meant that time had come for Mary to
deliver the holy Jesus to the world, and in that delivery, also be
delivered by the Child. All this wrapped up in those words- “the days
were accomplished that she should be delivered.” (Luke 2:6) And thankfully,
“she brought forth her first born son, and laid Him in a manger”.
Jesus came to deliver us from the bondage of lies, sin,
selves, the limits of the physical, death, and a host of other complications of
the devil, the world, and our flesh. He summed up the new freedom in two simple
statements:
“ Love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your
strength.” And “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment
greater than these.” (Mark 12: 30-31)
“ For unto us a Child is born,
unto us a Son is given, and His name shall be called: Wonderful, Counselor, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
Today is the day to let our Prince of Peace reign in our
hearts and minds and set us free to simply love God and our neighbors and live
in the delivery of the Son of God to and for us.
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