Advent
Meditation
December
7th
15.
Grounded in God's Declared Will
Matt
1:22 -25
All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be
with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which
means, "God with us." When Joseph woke up, he did what the
angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave
him the name Jesus.
There
is a bizarre phenomenon in the West in the twenty first century. If
is of people declaring their freedom from God, from religion, from ritual
and from rules, and who yet are, increasingly, slaves to upsetting and
destructive lifestyles from which they cannot escape. Psalm 2 is a psalm
that speaks of people who think that they are in chains and fetters
because of God's requirements and plot against God (Psa 2:1-3). It is
pure folly, the psalm reveals, because God is all-powerful and He is
Lord and He rules over the affairs of men. But there is another reason
that it is folly, and that is because all God intends for mankind is
good, and any restrictive laws are purely to protect man and maintain
the good.
Joseph,
in his dream is being confronted with a course of action that is in
direct opposition to all that he had felt before he went to bed. He
is confronted by an angel who tells him that what is happening to Mary
is God's will. It is part of God's previously declared will and has
now come about by the power of God. As we considered yesterday, the
questions before Joseph now are, is this really God speaking and will
I do what is being said? He clearly decides in the affirmative to both
questions. He reverses his previous plans and instead proceeds with
his betrothal, marries Mary and looks after her, even though he's had
nothing to do with the baby! This is a major step of faith.
But
let's consider further just what it is that he has done. He has basically
said, I will trust this is God and therefore, even though I do not fully
understand it, I will put myself fully into God's declared will and
do that which has been asked of me. This means that he takes on some
possible comments of the onlookers who will soon realize that Mary is
pregnant and that conception came before the marriage and, even more,
he's going to have to learn to live with the fact that he's going to
be father to a child that is not his, and he's going to continually
have to remind himself that this child is by an act of God, else he
may have bad feelings about Mary. However many other children they may
have in the future (and they had at least six more – Mk 6:3), the eldest
one would always have a question mark over him. Yes, this was a major
step for him to take.
We
will see from later on in the story that God's choice of this man was
well-founded because his ability to receive guidance from God made him
a good protector of the baby. At the time we may not be able to see
why God is instructing us to move in a particular way, but we need to
realize that God's plans for our individual lives are part of His bigger
plan and He will always provide all we need to comply with His wishes.
It is only, in fact, when we put ourselves into God's declared will,
that we find blessing and fulfillment. Only with the sense of walking
in the path He has for us, do we find true satisfaction. We may not
fully understand it, but we will receive peace and we will receive blessing.
Are you aware of His calling? Can you let go your fears and step into
that calling?
If
you wish to e-mail us any comment on this meditation please click here
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tony.thomas@rochfordcc.co.uk
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