For everything that God does, he has both a reason and an appointed season. Nothing he does is wasted. There is nothing pointless that God is doing in the world or in our lives unless our life is not pointing to him. If we are oriented to the King, nothing is pointless or wasted, but rather, he will bring it all together for our good and for the good of his kingdom. God will often set up circumstances and situations in our lives that look far from ideal, but instead are exactly where he intends to show up and move.
He did that with Jesus, who showed up on this earth in a package that nobody was asking for at the time. They wanted a conquering king to come and take out Rome for the people, but instead, they got a suffering servant. Instead of a white horse, Jesus came riding in on a donkey. He came in a package that nobody wanted, but it was the exact gift and the exact package that they needed. This is the way that God works.
John 3:16 NKJV
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
“So” literally means “in a very particular way”. God loved us in the exact, specific, precise way that he decided to love us, not the way we wanted to be loved, or how we thought we should be loved, but in the way that God said we needed to be loved – by Jesus – in the right way and in the right time. He didn’t come for us because we were so worthy, but God came and gave us worth by the coming of his Son Jesus. It’s because of him that we have value. He loved us just so – in just the right way.
The reason God is able to love us “just so” is because he doesn’t need a thing from us. There’s nothing we can add to him that he doesn’t already have. There’s no security he needs to gain from a relationship with us. He loves us from a pure love – just so – not because he needed us, but because we need him. That puts the focus where it belongs – not on us, but on him. The last thing we need in our lives is more of us, but rather, we need a whole lot more of him.
That’s the Gospel – God saying, more of him and less of us, and that brings our whole life into balance – from pointless, to pointed-at-him – full of his purpose, his mission, and his glory, because he loved us “just so.” Life will make no sense to us as long as we’re the center of our own universe. We can’t make God revolve around what we’re doing. If we’re looking for God to revolve around us, then we’ll hardly ever see, feel, hear from, or experience Him. But if we face him realizing that we are the orbiting object, then our life will come into focus.
There’s not a thing we can do to try to make God revolve around us, and we realize that it’s really all about him – all the time, every day, in every season, and every reason – it’s all about him. We don’t need saving from our circumstances, we need saving from ourselves – from what’s on the inside of us – which then changes everything on the outside of us. God brought this in a package, a way, a time, and a place that made seemingly no sense at all.
Prior to Jesus’ arrival, there had been four hundred years of silence from God. There had been no new prophets during this time, and the people were in a deep societal darkness and silence. They questioned whether God had altogether forgotten his promises. By the time Jesus showed up on the scene, the spiritual state of God’s people was not in a good place, and the conditions of their society were equally terrible. Those were truly dark times.
Luke 1:5-7 NKJV
“There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.”
God placed a premium on both Zachariah’s and Elizabeth’s hearts to honor, serve, and obey Him. There’s something unique that God can do whenever he finds someone whose heart is truly for him, and who wants to honor him.
Acts 5:32 NKJV
“And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”
John 14:21 NKJV
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
Zachariah means “God has remembered” and Elizabeth means “the Oath of God”. God cares about every little detail of our life, and especially who we marry, what our kids are like, where we live and work – God arranges it all – but a lot of times it’s in a package that doesn’t seem very favorable. God was about to use a situation of seemingly random selection and barrenness to fulfill the catalytic prophetic moment that set off the greatest series of events in human history.
Luke 1:8-10 NKJV
“So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.”
This was a once-in-a-lifetime event for Zachariah to offer incense. A priest could only have the honor once – and sometimes never. Each of twenty-four priestly divisions served at the temple for one week, twice per year, and there were around seven hundred priests per division. Lots were cast to determine which priest would enter the Holy of Holies to offer incense, so there was only a one-in-seven-hundred chance that any one priest would be selected.
Luke 1:10-11 NKJV
“Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.’ ”
Zachariah and Elizabeth had probably been praying for decades that they might have a child so that their reproach might be taken away but had probably long since given up any hope. And yet, the angel’s word to them was that their “prayer had been heard”. This was in the context of other prayers that Zacharia received the answer he’d long been seeking and was also brought into God’s broader purpose in the earth. It came in a package that not only they, but the entire world needed.
When our heart is to serve the Lord and to worship him in every circumstance, God will not only fulfill his promise to us but will do it in a way that blesses many others as well. He will take the details of our life that he delights in, and weave them into his broader story for all of humanity – for his kingdom – for all of eternity – for the salvation of many. This is God’s plan, to bless not just our life and our family, but many others as well.
“John” means “The Lord brings favor and grace.” John was a weird dude. He was out in the wilderness eating bugs, wearing camel’s hair, and spittin’ fire – calling people snakes and vipers, and preaching repentance. Not normal for starting a ministry, but it was the package the Lord sent him in to bring his favor and grace.
Daniel 9:24,25 AMP – The angel Gabriel told Daniel the exact day that Jesus would show up as the King. “Seventy weeks [of years, or 490 years] have been decreed for your people and for your holy city (Jerusalem), to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make atonement (reconciliation) for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness (right-standing with God), to seal up vision and prophecy and prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. So you are to know and understand that from the issuance of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until [the coming of] the Messiah (the Anointed One), the Prince, there will be seven weeks [of years] and sixty-two weeks [of years]; it will be built again, with [a city] plaza and moat, even in times of trouble.”
Zechariah 9:9 NKJV
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Jesus’ ministry began 28 AD. Jesus’ triumphal entry was four days before Passover 32 AD. The people tried to force Jesus to be King several times in the gospels, but he would always slip away, saying, “My time has not yet come.” But, on the right day, he not only allows it but arranges it!
John 7:6 AMP – God has a plan and schedule and we best get on His plan and off ours, lest we miss Him. “So Jesus said to them, ‘My time has not yet come; but any time is right for you.’ ”
Luke 19:37-40 AMP
“As soon as He was approaching [Jerusalem], near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the entire multitude of the disciples [all those who were or claimed to be His followers] began praising God [adoring Him enthusiastically and] joyfully with loud voices for all the miracles and works of power that they had seen…”
Romans 5:6 NLT
“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
Luke 1:15-17 NKJV
“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
God is always on-time and exact in His plan, and he brings us what we need in just-the-right package even if it’s not the one we asked for. God sent John to prepare people’s hearts to be able to receive Jesus for who he really was, not who they wanted him to be. For those who went out to hear John’s message, their hearts were turned and prepared to receive what they needed from God in whatever package he wanted to give it in – even if it looked like John.
John was filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb. If John could be filled with God’s Spirit before he was even born how do we think God feels about the value and worth of the unborn? The first person to recognize Jesus was John in his mother’s womb when he leapt and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied! God loves us, even in the womb. He’s for us, and he’s got a great and perfect plan for us!
Malachi 3:1-3 NLT
“ ‘Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,’ says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. ‘But who will be able to endure it when he comes? Who will be able to stand and face him when he appears? For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.’ ”
Malachi 4:6 AMPC
“And he shall turn and reconcile the hearts of the [estranged] fathers to the [ungodly] children, and the hearts of the [rebellious] children to [the piety of] their fathers [a reconciliation produced by repentance of the ungodly], lest I come and smite the land with a curse and a ban of utter destruction.”
Scripture tells us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ began with John the Baptist. It began with God sending the package that he wanted to deliver the gift in – to see who would receive it as it came – as He came. Maybe God’s trying to do some things today in our life, but the way he’s working or how he’s speaking to us doesn’t agree with us. But, he’s saying, “I need you to look past the circumstance and realize that I’m bringing you what you need in the package that you need.”
If we will come to him to sing and worship no matter what else is going on, not because we want the gift, but because we want Him, then, like Zacharia, he will break the silence in our life. He will speak to us. He wants to speak to us.
2 Corinthians 6:1 NKJV
“We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”
Maybe today’s not convenient for us to respond to the Lord, but today’s the day that He has chosen. Maybe we’re mad at God for something we don’t think went the way we thought it should have, but God’s coming to us in the midst of that saying, “Today’s the day. Now is the time. This is the way I’m coming to you because I so love you, just like this …can you receive it?”
Prayer
Father, in Jesus’ name, cause us to be able to receive what You want to do in our hearts and lives, no matter what it looks like or feels like to us. Lord, we confess and we repent for any moment we’ve rejected what You’re trying to do because it didn’t seem like it “fit” to us. Forgive us when we haven’t praised You in those dry seasons when we were mad and upset. God, we lay that at Your feet right now, and we choose by faith to worship You in this moment.
God, we give You all the honor, the glory, and all the praise because You know exactly what You’re doing – and we know You love us – You’ve loved us from our mother’s womb and we’re asking that You would fill us and bless us – reveal Yourself like You did for Zacharia after all that time. Thank You for the silence that You’re going to break in people’s lives. We pray for it and we believe You for it. In Jesus’ name. Amen
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on The Bridge
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