From "He's Coming!" to "He's Here!!!"

Heart Prep

God, help me to trust that, just as You answered the prayers of Zacharias,
You will answer my prayers.

Luke 1:17 “It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous,
so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

The people were waiting. Four hundred years is a long time. They knew God would be back, but when? They were told another prophet would come, and then the Messiah would come, so they kept waiting. Zacharias was a priest who was married to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was old, and she and Zacharias had never been able to have children. In that day, people would have assumed that she had done something wrong, and that that was God’s punishment for her. But the Bible tells us otherwise in Luke 1:6, “They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.”

Zacharias was serving in the temple one day, and an angel came to him and told him his prayers were going to be answered and his wife was going to have a baby! In fact the angel went further and told him that his son would be “great in the sight of the Lord… (Verse 13)”, and “It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children…and make ready a people prepared for the Lord!”

It was time!!! They could finally see it closer. All the waiting, the praying, the hoping that He was coming soon was over. Zacharias was a teacher of the prophets. He would have remembered the last prophecy in Malachi telling Him the exact same thing the angel had just told him about his son. His son would be the prophet making way for the Messiah to come! All their shame and heartache of not having a child was now over and they were going to parent the man who would prepare people for the SON OF GOD!

Life Application

What is God saying to me today?

What do I need to trust God for? 

Elizabeth and Zacharias followed God’s plan even though they couldn’t see all the pieces. What does God want you to do in response to this truth?