Luke 1:45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.
“Blessed is she who believed.” Mary is commended for her faith, as Zacharias was not. Even here, with the coming of Jesus into the world, it all depended on faith. Nothing happens in the Christian life without faith! And the result of faith is always blessing in one form or another.
Faith is simply believing God. It is trusting Him to fulfill what He has promised. Mary believed God would do what the angel told her He would. She believed the word of God.
In a sense, it need not have mattered whether Mary believed the angel or not. God could simply have allowed His plan to unfold; Mary would be pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and eventually Jesus would be born. Along the way, especially when she found herself pregnant without ever having known a man, Mary would have come to believe the angel’s word to her. But then, that wouldn’t be faith. She would have believed based on what she saw and experienced, rather than by trusting God’s word.
Heb 11:1 (NIV) Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
God commended her faith because she believed what she could not yet see, and believed it solely because God said it.
John 20:29 (NIV) Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
That’s the kind of faith God wants in His people. And the wonderful thing is that when we believe God’s promises to us, they are always fulfilled.
Num 23:19 (NIV) God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Mary’s faith – her trust in God to fulfill His word, even though what He promised seemed wildly improbable, is a great example for God’s people today. It’s great to know that we can believe God for impossibilities! Whatever He has promised He can fulfill. The only thing that can stand in the way of His promises to us being fulfilled is our own lack of faith. All things are possible to Him who believes!
And like Mary, if we will just believe God, and trust Him to fulfill His word, we will be blessed.
Ron Franklin
