Prepare For The Promise

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You're listening to the My Morning Devotional podcast, episode 1152. Today's Devo is called Prepare for the Promise. Hey there. We're the Alesses, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy and to do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time. That's why we've partnered with our friend Allison to produce a five minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast. Well, happy Tuesday, everybody, and welcome back. To My Morning Devo. This is your host, Gabby Alessi.

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And I love that I get to kick off the beginning of December, you know, because I said it yesterday morning. We make Christmas about Santa. We make Christmas about Elf on the Shelf, as we should. It's very fun. We can make Christmas about the work Christmas party or getting everybody their gifts.

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And Christmas can be such a hustle season that we can almost forget to sit back, open the word of God and say, God, what's the real reason? I almost get a picture in my head of the Home Alone movie where everybody wakes up for the airport and the trip and everybody's freaking out in the house and everybody's trying to get themselves together because they can't miss the flight.

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And so as they're hustling and as they're all trying to gather their things and they're going on their Christmas trip and they leave their son home alone. And almost like we can kind of get like a spiritual picture or, or lesson from that, which is we can get so caught up in everything that Christmas entails in an earthly sense that we forget the most important thing, which is remembering that Jesus came to the earth, remembering that Jesus was born.

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But there's a cool story that I was reading about recently, and this is actually before Jesus came. It was before Mary was prophesied over and the Holy Spirit gave her Jesus and conceived the child of Jesus. And it's the story of John the Baptist, and actually it's the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah. And this is in

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5. And we're going to. There's a lot of verses here, so I'm going to trim them down and not read all of them.

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But you're reading about Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, and it was actually Zechariah, he was a priest, and he was married to the woman Elizabeth, and she was unable to conceive.

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What's beautiful is that one of the verses here between 5 and 25 tells you that they both were righteous in the sight of God. They walked blameless in all of the commandments and decrees of the Lord. Verse 7 says, but they had no children because Elizabeth was barren. And they were both well along in their years. So it kind of continues going. It says one day while Zechariah's division was on duty, this meaning when he was a priest before God, it said that he was chosen by Lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. At the hour of the incense offering, the whole congregation was praying outside.

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Just then, an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.

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When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and gripped with fear.

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But the angel said to him, do not fear Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be joy and delight to you. And many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.

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He shall never take wine or strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb, many of the sons of Israel. He will turn 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. I want to pause right here because this is powerful, but what we're seeing is God making a promise to Zechariah about his wife Elizabeth. He's making a promise to Zechariah, but in turn he's making it to Elizabeth about God sending them a child. And this isn't just going to be a child that's going to fulfill their desire for children. It's not only going to meet that desire, it's about to prepare the way for an even greater promise that is the Messiah to come. When you continue reading, you're going to see how Zechariah received this promise. He even goes to his wife Elizabeth and lets her know. And then she actually has this moment where she conceives this child. And we're going to continue the story in the next couple of days. But I want to pause here because the Christmas time can be a season where you start to dwell on the promises that God made you.

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We can start to dwell on things that we desire and things that we want and maybe goals that we made at the beginning of this year that haven't been met or maybe prayers that we've prayed that haven't been answered or requests that we've made known to God that haven't been given to us. And the Christmas time is a time where we realize, wow, it hasn't been fulfilled.

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But I want this to encourage us all today. Let this story encourage you that maybe the promise that God made to us, it's not only to fulfill the desire of our heart, but it's to fulfill something greater in our life. It's to fulfill maybe the people in our life. It's to speak to and be a testimony to our family. It needs to speak to and be a testimony to our children. Maybe the thing that you're praying for, not only is it going to bless you and your desires, but it's about to transform your family and generations after you. And so on this morning be thinking about the promise that God made to you. If God promised it to Elizabeth and Zechariah, God will promise it to you and bring it to completion. All we have to do is say, yes Lord.

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Amen. Here is your servant. Send me.

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Use me. So let that encourage you today. If God did it for Elizabeth, a barren woman who had a desire in her heart for a child, God can do it for you. And it doesn't mean that we'll see this promise come to pass in the next couple of weeks. We won't see it before 2025. We might not see it for the next year, but we can't ignore that. God made us that promise. And if God said it, he will complete it. So let's pray over that today. Lord, we just thank you for your promise. We thank you Lord that you speak promises over us daily. And whatever we're holding on to God, we are going to learn from Elizabeth and Zachariah that the promise that you are about to fulfill in our lives, it's not just going to bless us, but it's about to bless generations. It's about to bless the communities in our lives. It's about to change the hearts and lives of the people around us. So use us Lord. We are your servants in Jesus name.

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Amen. So there you have it. Your 5 minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take on your day. If you found value in this devotional, share it with a friend, leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now. Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong, but your love for Jesus is stronger.