TUESDAY, JANUARY 9
Luke 1:39-56
Colossians 1:12-20

“For it pleased the Father
that in him should all fulness dwell.”

THE CONCEPTION MAGNIFIED

John the Baptist, while still a foetus, was filled with the Holy Spirit and leaped in his mother’s womb upon Mary’s arrival. It brought joy even to the unborn. Not only did the baby in Elisabeth’s womb rejoice, she also praised the Lord for the marvelous works done to them. She rejoiced not for their pregnancies but because God was using them as instruments in the wonderful plan of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Elisabeth called Mary “blessed” for the fruit of her womb was the Blessed One.

Mary called Him her Saviour. She acknowledged her sinful state and her need of a Saviour. She was not sinless as the Roman Catholic Church portrays her to be. She was born a sinner and without the saving work of Christ she deserved to be condemned forever in the Lake of Fire. The Mary of the Bible did not exalt herself as the mother of God; rather she repeatedly mentioned her being a handmaiden or slave of the Lord (Luke 1:48). She praised the Lord and uttered the “Magnificat” in acknowledgement that God would one day put down the mighty and send the rich away empty. Indeed, she did not seek her own glory but for His, to whom all glory is due.

Mary magnified the Lord and ascribed greatness to Him for He is rightly the perfect representation of the Godhead bodily, the image of the invisible God. “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell” (Col 1:19). Thus, all who diminish Christ, or impair His excellence, or rob Him of His offices, or take away even a drop from His fullness, overturn God’s eternal counsel of glorifying Him and Him alone. Let us always bear in mind that as we ascribe to Christ what belongs peculiarly to Him, no portion of His glory may be transferred to any other. Any form of such transfer is idolatry and abomination, “my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isa 42:8).

THOUGHT: Do I worship and give Jesus alone glory?
PRAYER: Father, help me to worship Thee alone and not to transfer Thy glory to another or even to myself.