Yes, Zechariah held a deep wound in an  embrace of emotions. This wound refused to be comforted, and it ruled his thoughts.  Oh how he’d tried to shake it out of his mind!  

Zechariah had no heir.  No child. 

No Isaac of his own. 

No legacy for him or for his dear wife, Elizabeth.  She was barren…and broken.  She tried to be happy for other women when she saw them with their children and grandchildren. 

Her love for others and her efforts in righteousness were well known by everyone. 

She loved and submitted herself into complete obedient service to Adonai.  She loved Him; and she loved her husband. 

She didn’t understand why Adonai did not give her the blessing of children, but she trusted the Almighty and prayed He might turn His face to see her sadness and take away her shame.  Like with Hannah.  She’d devote her son just like Hannah did with Samuel.  Her son would be dedicated to the priesthood in his father Zechariah’s footsteps. 

But no son, no heir, no child, no answer to her many prayers and those of her husband.  She felt the shame of it as there was little else for women to do than keep house, raise families to love Adonai, and to carry His Name forth to generations.  Sons represented hope and a legacy, of land and an inheritance to be given, and blessing to be passed along for posterity.  She didn’t have a child to call “Laughter” (the meaning of Isaac) or to call anything else.  She had no child at all and her reproductive years were well behind her.

***

Their Story, Your Story: 

1. How do you view the connection between obedience and God’s provision? 
2. Why do you think God doesn’t allow us to earn His favor that way? 
3. What does it do to God if He becomes like a divine vending machine? 
4. What about a legacy (an heir) would be important to Zechariah and Elizabeth?  What about a legacy as it relates to you?

Self-Reflection topic: Legacy

Prayer:  Father God, we praise You for comfort in our disappointments and discouragements.  We praise You that our salvation and Your blessings are not contingent upon our behavior.  We thank You for the ways You provide what we need in a way that grows our faith.  Your Word tells us regarding sufferings and disappointments “These have come so that your faith– of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire– may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:7). We ask, Lord, for our faith to be proved genuine and that all praise, glory and honor will be Yours.  Help us to see our faith in Your Son Jesus Christ as the most precious gift we could carry as our legacy.  Amen.

===

By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these Storyteller devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2018 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

===

Acknowledging inquiries about the entire season’s devotionals for your study group’s planning purposes, Seminary Gal’s prior seasons’ Advent devotionals can be accessed via the archives to the right and are as follows:  

• Last year’s Advent Devotional Series (2017), Still Christmas, began December 3, 2017 and was the Advent complement to the Lenten series, Be Still and Know that I AM God.
• The 2016 season devotionals were called “Timeless: The Message of Christmas for All Ages” and explored how the message of Christmas is timeless truth, for all ages of people, and for all ages at all times.  Timeless hope, encouragement, grace, peace, and love as we looked into the Word, saw the face of our Lord Jesus, and experienced restoration in His presence.  His goodness and His Gospel are truly Timeless. The 2016 devotionals began November 27, 2016.
• The 2015 season devotionals were titled Incarnation and involved digging deep–and yes, I mean deep– in this important mystery of Christian theology.  They began November 29, 2015.
• Carol Me, Christmas! remains one of my most popular offerings and tells the Christmas story through our most beloved Christmas hymns and carols.  You can access all of the numbered devotionals from 2014 via the archives.  They began November 30, 2014.
• The 2013 series was Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up in Person and examined the Prologue to the Gospel of John.  It began December 1, 2013.
• The 2012 series focused on Expecting the Unexpected…the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan outlined in Luke’s account of the Christmas story.  It began December 1, 2012.

Twice a year to offer incense, that’s the ritual for those belonging to the priesthood. 

There were about 18,000 priests who each made the journey twice a year.  These 18,000 were separated into 24 divisions and Zechariah belonged to the eighth order, that of Abijah. 

It was his turn to go for this one-week service window. 

What were the chances he’d do more than just minister outside? 

Practically zilch. 

Yet, there was always something refreshing about making these pilgrimages.

.  

True, there was time for self-reflection on doubt, but as the sun beat down on his dusty path, he was overcome by the newness of hope amidst the doldrums and the routines of life.  For starters, there was a reminder of the privilege: he was a descendant of Aaron and so was his wife.  But also, maybe it was the change of pace, the change of scenery, or even simple opportunities to be alone…alone with his hopes, in the comfort of the past pilgrimages, and alone to ponder the history of all the faithful throughout the generations…on a journey to the center of religious life and thought. 

He was going to the place of Abraham mentioned in Genesis 22:14, he recited aloud “The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” 

He was headed to that very mountain and maybe what his soul needed most—renewal and repair—would be provided in such a place where the Almighty provided to Abram a ram of sacrifice in place of his son Isaac.

***

His Story, Your Story: 

1. Do you have areas of your life in which you are still waiting with hope? 
2. How does it feel to wait patiently? 
3. What routines serve your spiritual life the best during those times? 
4. Which habits are most detrimental to your spiritual life?  Are those habits more detrimental when you’re alone? 
5. How do you use your “alone-time”?

Self-Reflection topic: The value of time alone

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, Your Word tells us that You often went alone to pray.  Teach us to value our time alone with You.  Teach us how to pray in an ongoing and personal way.  Teach us to overcome bad habits and to ignore distractions.  Help us to set aside everything that interferes with our relationship with You.  Help us to trust in Your provision and to wait patiently upon You.  Amen.

===

By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these Storyteller devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2018 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

===

Acknowledging inquiries about the entire season’s devotionals for your study group’s planning purposes, Seminary Gal’s prior seasons’ Advent devotionals can be accessed via the archives to the right and are as follows:  

• Last year’s Advent Devotional Series (2017), Still Christmas, began December 3, 2017 and was the Advent complement to the Lenten series, Be Still and Know that I AM God.
• The 2016 season devotionals were called “Timeless: The Message of Christmas for All Ages” and explored how the message of Christmas is timeless truth, for all ages of people, and for all ages at all times.  Timeless hope, encouragement, grace, peace, and love as we looked into the Word, saw the face of our Lord Jesus, and experienced restoration in His presence.  His goodness and His Gospel are truly Timeless. The 2016 devotionals began November 27, 2016.
• The 2015 season devotionals were titled Incarnation and involved digging deep–and yes, I mean deep– in this important mystery of Christian theology.  They began November 29, 2015.
• Carol Me, Christmas! remains one of my most popular offerings and tells the Christmas story through our most beloved Christmas hymns and carols.  You can access all of the numbered devotionals from 2014 via the archives.  They began November 30, 2014.
• The 2013 series was Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up in Person and examined the Prologue to the Gospel of John.  It began December 1, 2013.
• The 2012 series focused on Expecting the Unexpected…the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan outlined in Luke’s account of the Christmas story.  It began December 1, 2012.

How long Zechariah had been making this journey, he could barely remember. 

“A long time, that’s for certain,” he thought as he looked down at his sandals which he trusted would make the journey once again to Jerusalem and back.  “A bit worn…just like me,” he chuckled to himself.

“Oh, they’ll make the return okay.  Me?  More than a new set of straps and a patched-up sole would be required,” he concluded wryly as he reflected on the biannual journey of self-reflection and the inevitable battle against doubt, even so far as wondering how he stacks up on the priesthood scale. 

No one talks about it.

. 

Is it just me or do we all put on a good show for the public,” he pondered, “wanting others to believe we don’t have doubts like they do?” 

It’s not priestly to doubt—definitely not something to confess to others in the priesthood.  Hearts with no leaven whatsoever—that’s what we’re supposed to model.  Pray through it.  Bury it from public view.  Confess it in the prayer closet.  “Model a strong confidence in trusting the Almighty.  Now that’s what I hope people will see in me,” he told himself to boost his confidence, to lift his own faith. 

He had his reasons for feeling this way.  He just hoped no one else would see it.  Doubting the Almighty…a terrible, faithless, contradiction in terms.  Zechariah sighed deeply at the thought as he turned toward the Holy City of Jerusalem and the Temple for work.

* * *

His Story, Your Story: 

1. Where do you draw the line of distinction between failing to live to a perfect standard versus hypocrisy? 
2. How is doubting the Almighty a contradiction in terms? 
3. How do you reconcile an all-powerful God and all the sufferings in our world? 
4. In what ways do you place expectations upon your pastors or theology professors that are unrealistic? 

Self-Reflection topic: Hypocrisy

Prayer:  Father God, I praise You for Your forgiveness and covering over my times of doubt and hypocrisy.  Help me to honor You with my life and to obey You in all things.  Lord Jesus, thank You, for the perfect life You lived and for Your sacrifice to cover my failings.  Holy Spirit, please strengthen me in my doubts and give me confidence in the truth of God’s Word.  Help me, Lord, to see myself and others through the lens of love with which You see us.  Transform my thinking about others as You transform me.  Amen.

===

By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these Storyteller devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2018 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

===

Acknowledging inquiries about the entire season’s devotionals for your study group’s planning purposes, Seminary Gal’s prior seasons’ Advent devotionals can be accessed via the archives to the right and are as follows:  

• Last year’s Advent Devotional Series (2017), Still Christmas, began December 3, 2017 and was the Advent complement to the Lenten series, Be Still and Know that I AM God.
• The 2016 season devotionals were called “Timeless: The Message of Christmas for All Ages” and explored how the message of Christmas is timeless truth, for all ages of people, and for all ages at all times.  Timeless hope, encouragement, grace, peace, and love as we looked into the Word, saw the face of our Lord Jesus, and experienced restoration in His presence.  His goodness and His Gospel are truly Timeless. The 2016 devotionals began November 27, 2016.
• The 2015 season devotionals were titled Incarnation and involved digging deep–and yes, I mean deep– in this important mystery of Christian theology.  They began November 29, 2015.
• Carol Me, Christmas! remains one of my most popular offerings and tells the Christmas story through our most beloved Christmas hymns and carols.  You can access all of the numbered devotionals from 2014 via the archives.  They began November 30, 2014.
• The 2013 series was Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up in Person and examined the Prologue to the Gospel of John.  It began December 1, 2013.
• The 2012 series focused on Expecting the Unexpected…the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan outlined in Luke’s account of the Christmas story.  It began December 1, 2012.

Every story begins with the Storyteller.  You might be thinking I’m the Storyteller, but I’m not.  The Scriptures in this particular Story come from Gospel-writer Luke and also include occasional additions from Gospel-writer Matthew. 

Luke and Matthew answer the question “Who?”  But why does the Storyteller offer to tell us a Story?  

Stories captivate us.  They communicate truth in a very real, personal, and compelling way.  We can relate to stories in our own time, yet they can transport us to places we’ve never been …  to observe times we’ve never experienced, except through the story.  In this case, our Storyteller is about to share the truest of stories with the most powerful, most carefully researched characters ever presented.

Luke begins by saying, Luke 1:1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

Do you see? He’s passing along the Story in the finest of oral tradition, from the eyewitnesses themselves.  Better yet, he’s putting it to ink.  He’s not just telling us a Story, he’s recording it, so others can hear the Story long after Storyteller Luke is gone.

He wants you to know it’s reliable from start-to-finish:  Luke 1:3 Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Theophilus.  His name means “God-lover” but is it just a man’s name?  We don’t know.  We aren’t told.  But of this we can be sure:  The Story is told so we might be certain of the truth, carefully passed down from eyewitness of the events to earwitness of the telling, to the eyewitness of the reading to evangelistic witness of the retelling…as a cherished Story through the ages.  

But this is no fictional account, no matter how many theologians, pastors, teachers, and unbelievers try to tell us it’s just words from dejected disciples, made-up myths, or wishful thinking for people who need the crutch of fairy tales.

This is no fictional account, no matter how many historians try to discredit it.

This is no fictional account, no matter how unlikely the events seem to us in a scientific world.

***

Each day’s devotionals will conclude with Story-Application, a Self-Reflection Topic, and a Prayer

This Story, His Story, Your Story:  Tomorrow, our Storyteller begins, but he wanted you first to know why. He wants you to be more than captivated—he wants you to enter in, both to the Story and to the family of faith. “So that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”  He wants you to know it’s all true.  From the beginning (not “Once upon a time”) to the final words which are “The End” of a chapter, but fail to adequately capture the new beginning of eternal life.

Self-Reflection topic:  How do you know something is true?

Prayer:  Lord God, thank You for the miraculous Story we’re about to hear of the birth of Your Son Jesus Christ.  May our hearts acknowledge the truth of this Story, passed down through the generations.  Surround us with awe at the miracle of Your love.  May we know the peace Jesus alone can bring, a peace with You because the Story doesn’t begin and end at Christmas.  It began before time in Your will, Lord; continued to a climax of history, on the Cross, at the empty tomb; and continues to this day in the person Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord of Easter Sunday.  May each of us find ourselves in this Story and know the love You have for us, that You would send Jesus not just to be a good teacher, or a good man, but to be good news of great joy for all the people: A Savior is born.

===

By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these Storyteller devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2018 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

===

Acknowledging inquiries about the entire season’s devotionals for your study group’s planning purposes, Seminary Gal’s prior seasons’ Advent devotionals can be accessed via the archives to the right and are as follows:  

• Last year’s Advent Devotional Series (2017), Still Christmas, began December 3, 2017 and was the Advent complement to the Lenten series, Be Still and Know that I AM God.
• The 2016 season devotionals were called “Timeless: The Message of Christmas for All Ages” and explored how the message of Christmas is timeless truth, for all ages of people, and for all ages at all times.  Timeless hope, encouragement, grace, peace, and love as we looked into the Word, saw the face of our Lord Jesus, and experienced restoration in His presence.  His goodness and His Gospel are truly Timeless. The 2016 devotionals began November 27, 2016.
• The 2015 season devotionals were titled Incarnation and involved digging deep–and yes, I mean deep– in this important mystery of Christian theology.  They began November 29, 2015.
• Carol Me, Christmas! remains one of my most popular offerings and tells the Christmas story through our most beloved Christmas hymns and carols.  You can access all of the numbered devotionals from 2014 via the archives.  They began November 30, 2014.
• The 2013 series was Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up in Person and examined the Prologue to the Gospel of John.  It began December 1, 2013.
• The 2012 series focused on Expecting the Unexpected…the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan outlined in Luke’s account of the Christmas story.  It began December 1, 2012.

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”  (Colossians 3:15)

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the United States!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4: 7-10)

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions– it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast.

(Ephesians 2:4-9)

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. (Lamentations 3:21-26)

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.  If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4: 8-11)