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Verse:For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. —John 3:16, GNT
You’re pregnant!” I was fifteen years old when I heard those words. I was an extremely shy tenth-grade student who had never been on a date.
I may have been a victim of circumstance—but I was not a victim.
In the fullness of time, God blessed me with a baby girl on my sixteenth birthday, as He had blessed my mother with me on her thirty-fifth birthday.
I think of another teenager who had an encounter that resulted in her becoming pregnant. Luke tells the story of the virgin Mary. Gabriel told her she had found favor with God and would bear a son and would name Him Jesus. He would be called the Son of the Most High. Mary responded, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38, NKJV). Matthew records that her fiancé, Joseph, being a just man, decided to quietly put her away. An angel appeared to him in a dream and said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20, 21, NLT). Jesus was no ordinary baby. God poured out all of heaven in that one Gift.
King Herod wanted to destroy Jesus, so he killed all the male children in Bethlehem who were two years old or younger (see Matthew 2:16–18).
But Jesus’ life was spared in order to fulfill God’s plan of salvation. Jesus grew and “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52).
At the age of twelve, He listened to and asked questions of the teachers in the temple, and “everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46, 47, NIV). When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove (see Matthew 3:16). Immediately, the enemy tried to tempt Jesus but was unsuccessful, and for the next three years, Jesus went about binding up the brokenhearted, restoring sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk and the deaf to hear, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel to rich and poor. Jesus is coming again, not as a baby, but as the King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus is the reason we celebrate this season.
Let us celebrate Him with the deepest joy!
Sharon Long