Devotional for Monday Dec 15, 2003: A Lesson from Mary
Greg Laurie Senior Pastor Harvest Christian Fellowship Riverside, Ca
"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary."
It is difficult for us to understand, 2,000 years later, the significance of the angel Gabriel's appearance to Mary in Nazareth. After all, he could have found the future mother of the Messiah in Rome, the capital of the greatest power on earth at the time. He could have found her in Athens, the cultural center of the world, or at Jerusalem, the spiritual center of the world. But God chose Nazareth, an obscure but extremely wicked city that was notorious for its sin. Upon hearing that Jesus was from there, Nathanael said, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46).
What is amazing about Mary is that she lived a godly life in a godless place, and she did so as a very young teenager. Commentators believe she may have been as young as 12, but not much older than 14. Here she was, a nobody living in a nothing town in the middle of nowhere—precisely the kind of person that God goes out of His way to call. He chose an unknown girl in a relatively unknown city to bring about the most-known event in human history, an event so significant that we actually divide human time by it.
Maybe you are trying to live out your faith in a godless place today, maybe at work or school or among unbelieving family members. You're wondering if it can be done. It can. Mary stands as an example for us, proving that it is possible to live a godly life in an ungodly world.
