Christmas: Zacharias and Elisabeth

Christmas week is finally here!!! This year has certainly flown by in so many ways. As we remember the Christmas story, we come across so many people who had an important role in the true story of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. One couple that I think of is Zacharias and Elisabeth who are talked about in Luke 1:5-25, 57-80. These two were were an old couple who were looked down upon by many. Why? Well, because they had no children. In the days of Jesus, if a couple had no children they were considered inferior. In fact, most people thought that if someone was childless that there must have been some serious sin in their life for God to cause them to be without a child. However, none of these things were true about Zacharias and Elisabeth. Luke 1:6 says,"And they [Zacharias and Elisabeth] were both righteous before God..." Of coarse this does not mean they were perfect, but it means that they were faithful to God and when they did sin, they got it right with Him. God, for some mysterious reason that they did not understand had shut up Elisabeth's womb. They had prayed and prayed for a child, but God just din not seem to answer. Until one day when Zacharias, who was a priest, was offering incense in the temple, an angel suddenly appeared to him telling him that Elisabeth would have a baby. Zacharias at first did not believe and as a result, he could not speak until the baby boy was born.

There are so many lessons we can learn from this true account:
1. God can do anything. Zacharias and Elisabeth were way past child-barring years, but God performed a miracle and allowed them to have a baby boy. " For with God nothing shall be impossible." -Luke 1:37
2. God hears and answers prayer. We need to make sure we are not holding back sin in our lives from Him because when we do, God will not hear our prayers (Psalm. 66:18). If our requests are in accordance with His good will and purpose, He will answer them.
3. God highly values faith. Zacharias did not have it and as a result he couldn't speak for nine months. When God tells us something we need to believe it and claim it as true because it is. Hebrews 6:18 tells us that God cannot lie because it is so diametrically opposed to His nature.
4. We need to be careful about judging others. Zacharias and Elisabeth were wrongfully looked down upon and reproached by their countrymen. Many times we are so quick to judge someone's heart just because something bad happens to them or because thay may do certain things in a different way than we do. In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus warned about being judgemental about someone's heart motives. This does not mean that we should not be discerning or show the unsaved their need for Jesus, but it means that we should not take one-sided opinions (even if they are our own) and make quick judments about others and their heart-motives.
As we can see there are many things we can take out of this account of Zacharias and Elisabeth. You can probably think up of many more too! All of these prick my heart and I pray that God will help me and everyone put these principles into practice.