I don’t know about you, but I often grasp for motherhood encouragement as I read the Bible. This passage from Luke chapter 1 came at the perfect moment when I really needed to know I wasn’t abandoned.
Jana’s highlight version:
Praise be to the Lord . . . in Jesus:
Luke 1:68-73
He has come
He has redeemed
He has provided salvation
He did what He promised
He saved us from our enemies
He showed mercy
He remembered His covenant
And all of this, why? What’s the goal?
. . . to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
Luke 1:74-75
and to enable us to serve Him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.
Some days I am my own worst enemy. I fret and worry and stress and react out of anger and feel depressed and spiral in my thoughts. What relief to know God is willing and able to rescue me from myself!
But He doesn’t just pull us out of darkness. We are rescued in order to live! Jesus enables us to live in the light. He empowers us to serve Him with no fear, living in holiness and righteousness. And this is not of our own initiative or effort! No! The Jesus who saves and keeps us is the same Jesus who enables us ALL OUR DAYS.
[Jesus] does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That’s the whole point. It’s what he came to heal. He went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to his people.
Dane Ortlund, “Gentle and Lowly”
What encouragement to my soul that God is faithful to enable me as a mother. He qualifies and approves and empowers. Jesus, only Jesus.