Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., retired boxer Muhammad Ali is widely considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time by sports commentators and historians.  To that point, he has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated more often than any sports figure aside from Michael Jordan. 

Ali is quoted in his autobiography, The Greatest: My Own Story (1975), with saying,

I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest.”

Well, one out of two isn’t bad.  He wasn’t the greatest or the smartest. 

John the Baptist was far greater, for far better reasons than being good at hitting people.  Scripture says of John the Baptist,

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous– to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:14-17).

As great in the sight of the Lord as John the Baptist was, he was still not the greatest.  No, that person is Jesus.  Mary is told regarding Jesus,

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:32-33).

The first of five Christological (Messianic) references in these two verses is that Jesus will be great.  Not “great in the sight of the Lord,” but great…period.

Muhammad Ali may think the term greatest is accurately applied to himself, but the Word of God considers that there are already plenty of people in the kingdom of heaven well ahead of Muhammad Ali’s boxing greatness.

Jesus, the great one, says of John the Baptist,

I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11).

Luke 1: 30 “But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.’”

At first blush, the news Gabriel had for Mary doesn’t seem significantly different than the news Zechariah had received just a few verses earlier.

Luke 1: 13 “But the angel said to him: ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.’”

 Don’t be afraid.  Check, check.

Zechariah.  Mary.  Name.  Name. Check, check.

But here, the two birth announcements begin to diverge.  Zechariah, your prayer has been heard.  Mary, you will be with child. (Had she been praying for this? Unlikely.)

Zechariah–Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son (naturally conceived, but through God’s doing the impossible).  Mary–you will be with child and give birth to a son (supernaturally conceived and miraculously the Son of God and Son of Man).

Zechariah—a priest—was given this message at a most sacred time of his life (while burning incense in the temple).  His doubt at Gabriel’s message stands in contrast to his priestly position and results in his being unable to speak until the words recorded in Luke 1:59-64 at John’s circumcision.

Mary, on the other hand, was by all measures living a normal day when Gabriel arrived.  But this moment inaugurated the most sacred time of her life.  She was entrusted with the most important baby ever to have been born.  The enormity of the responsibility cannot be overstated.  For nine months, she would be pregnant and at the end of this time, she would give birth to the long awaited Messiah.  The pressure to demonstrate the greatest care and nurture, knowing the importance of your role, would have been stressful if Mary had been of a different temperament.

At present, Prince William and Kate Middleton (Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge) are expecting their first child.  The high profile pregnancy is exciting news and is being watched with eager anticipation of the birth of the next in line of the Royal Family.   The world’s microscope upon her pregnancy could cause additional worry and concern and might be all the more reason for the greatest medical care available.  This child is important!  Yet, the new Royal’s birth pales by comparison to the virginal conception of Jesus.

Amazingly, we do not see Mary exhibiting doubt, worry, pride, stress, or panic.  Instead, she listens and obediently assents to serve God however He chooses.  He would provide all the care His Son would need and Mary knew she was blessed to enjoy the privilege.  Never again would anyone have such a role.

And Mary said:

My soul glorifies the Lord  and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me– holy is his name” (Luke 1:46-49).

Say the words, Hail Mary and the world suddenly divides into the world of Christians and the world of sports enthusiasts.  In the Venn diagram of life, some will catch the dual meaning. 

Ever since 1975 when Roger Staubach threw a game-winning touchdown pass to wide receiver Drew Pearson in a playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, any forward pass that is a long shot thrown out of desperation in the waning minutes has been termed a “Hail Mary.”  Roger Staubach is reported to have closed his eyes and said a Hail Mary (prayer, in the Catholic sense) at that time and the rest is history.

In the Roman Catholic sense, it refers to one of the traditional prayers of the faithful:

Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

This prayer of intercession–so familiar to Roman Catholics–has its root in the greeting from the angel Gabriel.   What we’ve been seeing as “Greetings” is translated “Hail” in the King James Version.

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women (Luke 1:28 )

The words we read as “thou that art highly favoured” in the King James Version are actually only one word in the Greek, a verbal cognate of the word we translate as grace.

Clearly, this unmerited favor/grace given by God to Mary was a means of setting her apart (giving the idea of Holy Mary that we see in the Hail Mary prayer).  Mary was chosen to bear the Son of God and throughout the centuries there has been great debate over whether it was appropriate to call her the Mother of God and if so, exactly what that means.  So in 451 AD, Church Fathers gathered to discuss this and wrote the Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon, which reads (in part):

Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood.

Mary didn’t birth God as Triune or exist as part of the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and therefore, Hail Mary prayers are still viewed with suspicion by those in the Protestant world.  Mary–as a completely human being–is not divine at all.  Therefore her prayers are no more efficacious than say yours or mine.  Her earthly role was exceedingly important, as was John the Baptist’s, but neither of them have any special audience with Jesus.  At least nowhere near the presence that God’s Holy Spirit indwelling all believers has with Christ.

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t need Mary’s help with praying.  That is why so many Protestants and many Roman Catholics find the line between veneration (i.e. profound respect and reverence) and worship to be increasingly blurry when it comes to Mary.  Veneration is completely appropriate.  Worship is God’s alone.   The beloved disciple John writes,

Revelation 22:8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!

All Christians worship God alone.  That said, Protestants can honor and respect Mary as the woman who bore the Son of God for her special role in redemptive history.  We can do this without giving her greater authority in heaven than God has actually granted to her.  I join my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters who believe veneration is good but that worship of Mary is inappropriate.  We can all look at Mary as a marvelous example of humility and faith and say that she was highly favored, full of grace.

Luke 1:28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

It’s not every day that someone has an angel arrive with a message.  No wonder Mary was greatly troubled.  But look closer: she wasn’t troubled at him.  She was troubled at the angel’s word–at his greeting.

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be much here to be troubled about. 

• Greetings!  (Seems friendly enough.)
• You who are highly favored.  (Not just favored.  Highly favored…literally favored one.  That might make a person wonder what she did to become favored, but favored in general is a good thing.  Certainly better than the alternatives.)
• The Lord is with you.  (This is the polar opposite of the Lord being against you.  Mary ought to be encouraged.)

So why would Mary be troubled?  No!  Greatly troubled?  Seems like plenty of good news going on here.  But Mary kept pondering what kind of greeting this would be.  Maybe she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Maybe she was waiting for him to say, “But…”

The favor of the Lord being “with her” is encouraging and yet Mary understandably didn’t know why or in what way.  Maybe she was troubled because she knew there was nothing she did to earn that favor and God would soon figure that out.

There is nothing Mary did to earn it.  God chose to bestow His favor upon Mary–though she was as human as any other person to walk the earth.  She made mistakes.  She didn’t always act in perfect accord with Scripture.  Her son Jesus would be the only person to live His entire life without sin.  Yet Mary found favor with God because grace (unmerited favor) is a defining characteristic of God.

Have you ever been in a place where you knew the Lord’s favor by how a circumstance came together or had a “wink from God” or a coincidence (which is when God chooses to remain silent)?  Maybe you’ve received a blessing so clearly from God that you knew the Lord was with you?  For others of us, we know the Lord’s being “with us” most clearly when we are sick or when we are dying.  Like the footprints story in which God carries us…

If you’ve ever been caught smack-dab in the very center of God’s will, and you’ve known the great favor of His clear presence, you know how unnerving this can be.  I’ve had 2 instances of this in my Christian walk and both times, I could feel the marrow of my bones quaking.  I wonder if that was a mild expression of how Mary felt in more profound measure–faced with the reality of the power of God and the magnitude of His grace.  I can only imagine that having an angel spell it out for you might shake you to your core.

One thing is for sure:  Mary’s life would never be the same after the greeting.

Luke 1:26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.  The virgin’s name was Mary.

For the record, I am really glad that God fulfilled the “Virgin Birth” when He did.  God chose Mary and boom!  Done deal! 

There was no pundit analysis about whether God had chosen the right virgin to bear the Son of God.  62% of the American public thinks God made the right choice, 33% think God’s choice is in the wrong direction, and 5% are agnostic and just don’t know.

Or worse, how awful things would be if He were to have waited until the present day’s reality TV and did things the modern way.  Ugh. 

Just imagine a sordid amalgamation of The Bachelor, The Apprentice, and a Woman’s Day essay contest answering, “Why I should be the Mother of the Son of God” in 500 words or less.

Fortunately for all of us, God was not on The Bachelor, gathering virgins around Himself to decide which one would be chosen at the end of the season.  God was not looking over well-crafted résumés; evaluating job performance; deciding which virgin would not move on to next week, and telling her, “You’re fired!”  The virgin didn’t have to win a talent competition, model a swimsuit, answer a question about world peace, dance with the stars, or even be interviewed by God before He might choose which lucky lady would be crowned Mother of the Son of God.  There were no tabloids featuring pictures of Mary with a baby bump with a headline that reads, “Virgin says, ‘God got me pregnant!’ Read our exclusive interview with the virgin on page 2.”

Rather, in a time of slower communication, in a rural nowhere town, there’s a humble young woman named Mary.  Luke, the writer of this Gospel, peels the onion away one layer at a time from the region of Galilee, to the town of Nazareth, to a virgin who is pledged to be married—layer by layer—until we see God knows her personally.  Her name is Mary.

No celebrity status.  No contest.  No qualifications on a resume or prior birthing experience.  Just a humble young woman—a virgin—full of godly character, having a huge heart of faith, and brimming with a willingness to serve God.  God chose.  Mary responded as God knew she would.  Simple.  Beautiful.  Humble.  Perfect.

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Luke 1:26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

It’s a big announcement of an event anticipated since the Garden of Eden, so God sends an angel (Gabriel—one of the angels mentioned in the Old Testament and New Testament as a herald) to Nazareth—an obscure little town in the middle of nowhere.   A humble rural place.

Nazareth.   It’s never even mentioned in the Old Testament but by the time of the New Testament, it was considered a no-good kind of place, although it’s not clear why.

And Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” (John 1:46 NAS)

You can almost hear the disdain.  Nazareth’s reputation must have been common knowledge.  Was it a hick town, so small and insignificant that it wasn’t worth noting?  Or was it a place known for its lack of faith?  Scholars suggest both.  I suppose every town is known for something: Las Vegas has a reputation as Sin City–a place where your hidden activities stay secret, and Newark evokes images of smokestacks, industrial pollution, and generally being the armpit of the nation.

Yet, Nazareth was Mary’s hometown.  It became Jesus’ too.  After Joseph and Mary escape to Egypt to preserve Jesus’ life, Scripture tells us:

Matthew 2:19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

Nazareth was a no-good kind of place in the middle of nowhere.  But a young girl who loved the Lord lived there and she would be the mother of Jesus.  Because of Jesus, we can say “Yes, someone good and perfect  and wonderful came out of Nazareth.  He is our Savior.”

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,  to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27)

I guess we can all be glad that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ—when God became flesh—happened when and how it did.  In the person of Jesus Christ, God added manhood to His already existing Godhood.  God’s timing and His ways made the event of the Incarnation even more remarkable beyond simply miraculous.  It was perfect.

In this year’s Advent devotionals, we will explore the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan.  His perfect plan includes His ways of bringing things to be, but it also includes His timing.

Sure, it’s easy to bemoan God’s timing when it isn’t fast enough to suit us; when we feel like we’ve been in the fire being purified a bit too long; when our Type-A-microwave-instant-gratification-high-speed-Internet-gotta-have-it-now personalities wanted God to do something yesterday and it’s today already; or when we’re languishing in a bad situation and praying for deliverance from it with no deliverance in sight.  These are the times that God seems like Mr. Slowsky, instead of the Divine Architect of the Perfect Plan.

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth—a tiny, humble little backwater town in Galilee—in the sixth month.

The sixth month of what?

Of Mary’s relative Elizabeth’s pregnancy with John the Baptist.  Let’s face it, though: Elizabeth was old.  She was resigned to being infertile on account of her biological clock having ceased ticking many years ago.  But now, look!  She’s far enough along to be showing considerably and to feel her baby moving.  First time mothers will often feel their babies move between 18-24 weeks.  That’s 4-6 months.  Yes, the sixth month.

Perfect timing.  Let’s jump ahead to see the perfection of this.

Luke 1:39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

Yes, the sixth month of Elizabeth’s unexpected pregnancy was absolutely perfect to provide evidence that Mary, also, was right to be expecting the unexpected.

Is it possible to rejoice even when things don’t seem to be going well for you?

It’s easy to have faith and to rejoice in the LORD when everything is going along smoothly and you’re on the mountain top.  But when plunged into the valley; when suffering comes your way; when difficulties arise; when diagnoses aren’t what you hoped for; when you feel let down by God; when you’ve tried to do everything right–eat well, exercise, study Scripture, pray, shop at Target where you expect more and pay less, read the Wall Street Journal; and when you’ve done it all and things fall apart anyway, can you still rejoice?

Habakkuk says yes.

The Apostle Paul says yes, too.  He wrote the book on human suffering for the faith.  After listing numerous ways of suffering, he says this:

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)

Do you see how Paul kept his focus?  Just like Habakkuk.  We can rejoice in God our Savior.  Nothing can separate us from His love.  With this as sure knowledge, our hope endures and we press on!  Our faith will be rewarded someday.  We are strengthened to go on to the heights.

There is a sense of wonder about the dawning of another day when we look at each new day as a gift from a loving God.  Even when we are facing illness, sadness, confusion, or loss, these events are part of God’s handcrafting an eternal string of pearls.  From the perspective of eternity and with knowledge of a loving God through whose hands all things must pass, what seems unbearable today is tomorrow’s beauty from ashes.  No matter what comes today, know that God loves you.  He is hard at work today to give your life eternal beauty.  Imagine today as a pearl He is faithfully forming to be revealed some day in all its perfect beauty.

Rejoice today and wait upon the LORD.

Lamentations 3:18 So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD.” 19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. 21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Do you ever feel like the world is against you?  That everything is imploding all around you and you don’t know where to turn?  Maybe that familiar feeling of panic is breathing its breath right in your face?

If you’ve been walking the Christian walk for awhile, you know what I’m talking about.

One hopes that the life of God’s faithful people involves blessing after blessing, but the truth is our walk of faith is filled with opposition.  That’s because opposition is the soil where faith grows.

Where do you turn when opposition arises?  The Bible is clear on the subject of suffering and opposition and the way in which we can stand firm. When opposition arises, we look to God with eyes of faith. There’s an interesting passage, one that I have theatrically portrayed a time or two in the role of Miriam, Moses’ sister.  We have become so accustomed to the story that we give a great yawn of ho-hum, yada, yada, yada.  But when it is reenacted, this story has captivated people who suddenly see themselves in a place of needing deliverance and the desperate straits of God’s people who desire to live by faith.

Read along as I interject thoughts about dealing with opposition, struggles, and suffering:

Exodus 14:9 The Egyptians– all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops– pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon. 10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

The goal of opposition is to cause us to look back, cease progress, and destroy our lives of faith.  Don’t you find it interesting that they were terrified and cried out to the LORD, but then they spoke to Moses?  With a horizontal outlook, they saw the tyranny of the Egyptians and the fault of Moses.  All of this is a worldly perspective.  When suffering comes your way, don’t look around.  Look up.  That’s what Moses did.

Exodus 14:13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Moses was trying to get the Israelites to look to God.  Look up, he exhorts them!  But he had one eye up and one eye on the same Egyptian pursuers they saw.  Sometimes all the faith we can muster is one eye up and speaking words of faith to try to pull the other eye up off our circumstances.

Have you ever had double vision in that way?  Trying to see with eyes of faith but finding yourself unable to keep your eyes off the pain of your present situation?  I’m not one to be too hard on Moses.  It is by God’s design that the deliverance and faith required was more than one man could accomplish.

Exodus 14:15 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”

The LORD said to Moses, “Why are you [Moses] crying out to me?”  It’s like Moses had been crying out, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). 

God takes our mustard seeds of faith, plants them in the soil of opposition, and multiplies our faith. 

He gives Moses a plan and a process through which God will work.  When we exercise all the faith we have and endeavor to look up, God multiplies the faith we have.

God did not say that He was going to part the waters from heaven when Moses cried out.  Moses would raise his staff and stretch his hand and the LORD’s command to Moses was “divide the water.”  A command no different than raise your staff, stretch out your hand.  Moses’ faith had been multiplied.  He took God at His word.  Moses didn’t stop and say,

That doesn’t make any sense.  I’ve never divided water before in my life.”

He just believed God would do it.  Moses was an amazing man of faith, but this is the same way in which God wants each of us to go through our days. Believe.  Look to God with eyes of faith.  Trust that your deliverance will be accomplished.  Plant your seeds of faith in the soil of opposition and God will make faith grow.

Exodus 14:19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

I wonder how Moses would have felt, seeing the angel of God and the pillar of cloud moving from in front to standing in the gap behind them.  Would it have inspired fear that no one was in front of them?  They were alone, facing the sea!  Would Moses have to overcome the fear of what lay ahead knowing that God was not walking before them?  Or would it have reassured him that God was giving evidence to increase Moses’ faith by standing in the gap Himself?  I don’t pretend to know.  But I do see the outcome:

Exodus 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

God wasn’t going to make Moses part the sea, to truly do the humanly impossible.  Moses divided the sea by faith.  God divided it by divine power.  Even so, the attackers pressed on into the place that LORD made when faith acted.

Exodus 14:23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. 24 During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. 25 He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt.”

Isn’t it interesting that the Egyptian oppressors, faithless opportunists, pushed in to gain even after the Israelites moved in faith?  If you have ever experienced spiritual opposition, you know (as I do) that the attack can often seem worse the more faith you exercise until that moment when God brings you to that line where the faithless cannot go.  Maybe you feel like “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

But a point comes when your faith bears fruit and you take that step into an area where the faithless cannot tread.  The spiritual opposition stops in its tracks, confused, unable to move forward.

Exodus 14:26 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen– the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. 29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 

Deliverance from difficult times happens when our faith bears fruit.  The opposition—that once sought to keep us from taking an imperative step of faith—gives up, having lost the battle to have you turn back.  To fall away.  To say, it’s just not worth it.

Exodus 14:30 That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. 31 And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Faith’s fruit contains seed that when sown, produces offspring like it.  Faith grows more faith. 

Sometimes, you may hear people say things like, “New level, new devil.” 

While I’m not sure whether there’s a new devil or just the same old one that tries new and more drastic measures, I have great confidence that faith in God grows more faith in God. 

And this faith grows best in the soil of opposition.

1 Peter 4:12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.