Welcome to the month of December! I thank God for carrying myself and all of you this far as 2023 will come to a close soon. 

I was on Instagram and I saw this challenge. It may be old, but this is my first time participating in it. The challenge is this: Read one chapter of the book of Luke each day so that on Christmas you know WHO and WHY we celebrate. I started this on December 1st and I wanted to talk about specific parts of chapter 1 that stood out to me. 

If you want, now would be a good time to pause and read chapter 1 so you can understand the text with me and so there won’t be any spoiler alerts. 

Being barren in biblical days was equal to wearing a badge of shame. Women who could not conceive were thought to be cursed or being punished by God. This text stuck out to me because Elizabeth had gone many years without a child and instead of showcasing her pregnancy, flaunting around town or possibly even rubbing it into the faces of anyone who used to shame her, she instead chose seclusion. 

That’s when I realized the problem with most of us these days. We can be too quick to announce aspects of our lives to other people, especially when it comes to spiritual assignments and visions of the future. We need to be more like Elizabeth and protect the things of God that he has impregnated us with because not every person needs to speak over it, know about it or try to confuse or rebuke it. That special thing that God blesses you with and announces to you needs to be left in seclusion where only He can access it, prepare you for it and speak life into it until its ready for the world. 

It makes me wonder how many “miscarriages” we’ve had because of premature disclosures?

Maybe Mary stayed with other people during her pregnancy, but they weren’t mentioned in the chapter. Luke talks about the urgency Mary took to go see Elizabeth after the angel Gabriel told her the good news. So I asked myself why Elizabeth first? Why not go see her mom first or why was that detail omitted if she did? I believe that this was a case of anointing understanding anointing. Mary had been favored with a beautiful assignment and she knew that she needed to nurture that assignment in a like minded, or rather like spirited, environment. Your God given assignment can suffer if you are attached to the wrong company. See, Elizabeth was covered by the Holy Spirit just as Mary was. Elizabeth was a righteous woman and Mary had a willing spirit to be the Lord’s servant. They could relate to the responsibility that they each carried. I can imagine during those 3 months they felt the power of God, deposited the word of God into each other, saw glimpses of the future, expressed the awe of both their circumstances and built a circle of trust as chosen vessels of the Lord. 

Friends, with 2023 right around the corner God will start speaking to some of you this month about what is to come in 2024. Make sure you nurture the vision and assignment with prayer, protect it and don’t give everyone access to it and most importantly make sure God always remains connected to it so that He gets the glory. 

See you next week!