
Message: In Luke 1 Elizabeth & Zechariah receive their gift of conception just before Mary received her gift of conception. Zechariah asked “how will I know” and Mary asked “How will it happen”. Because of this, Zechariah was silenced for the duration of the pregnancy and his speech was restored when he aligned in agreement and confirmed the name of the baby according to the word of the Lord. In these stories baby John was filled with the holy spirit in the womb, Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and so was Mary. Zechariah was filled with the holy spirit and began to prophesy after his speech was restored.
Command: Align with the word of the Lord. It’s ok to have questions but questioning the plan is counterproductive. Zechariah was silenced until the day he aligned himself with the plan of God by confirming John’s name.
Promise: God has plans that are bigger than we are and he gave us a powerful gift of partnership to confirm his plans by speaking words that align with his plans.
Warning: These plans are not about us so when we question the plan we are making it about us. I believe Zechariah was silenced not as a punishment but in order to protect the plan of God.
Application: Understanding the power of our words is important. Jesus gave us his power and authority to partner with him in speaking out his plans into existence so when we use our words to align with God’s plan powerful things occur. This means that the contrary is also true so we have to be careful with this privilege and use our words responsibly because we can also use our words to bring harm and interrupt the plan of God as well. The conception of John the Baptist happened when the entire assembly was praying together and brought favor to Zechariah while he was making a sacrifice. When his words opposed the plan of God he was silenced and when he came into alignment he was restored. Imagine if we were silenced every time we spoke out of agreement with God’s word! Some of us might find ourselves on mute for a while but I bet we would learn to change our speech pretty quickly! God was not going to allow Zechariah’s careless words to be spoken and mess up the plan so he protected the plan. For us, we need to be aware of the power of our words so that in our ignorance we don’t use the partnership power of our words to interrupt or counteract the plans of God. This convicts my heart so much as I think of all of the things I have said in my ignorance to the power he has given me.
