Holiness and Righteousness

    Today I would like you to think on a portion of Zacharias’ prayer/praise/prophecy recorded in Luke 1, but first a bit of background about Zacharias: 

    Zacharias was the father of John, a man who would become “great in the sight of the Lord” and who would “turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God” (Luke 1:15-16) by making “ready a people prepared for the Lord” (v17), but Zacharias did not believe the angel Gabriel’s words - that he and Elizabeth would have a child in their old age and with such a purpose - so he was struck mute, unable to talk until Gabriel’s words were fulfilled (vv18-20). ~ Please read all of Luke 1, it is a wonderful account!

    Eight days after their baby was born, his parents named him John, as Gabriel instructed (v13), and Zacharias’ “tongue was loosed, and he spoke, praising God.” 

    Please consider this excerpt:

“Blessed be the God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people… to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” (Luke 1:68, 74-75 NKJV)

    The Holy Spirit gave Zacharias a message to proclaim (vv67-79), a prophecy pertaining to the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham. Please read the whole of the prophecy, it’s so joyful! I can almost hear Zacharias’ voice crack with emotion and sheer exultation of the Lord! All that was promised, all that was prophesied about is happening in his life - God is preparing the way for His Son, the world’s Redeemer!  

    Zacharias exuberantly declares that the time is coming when those who are redeemed and delivered from the hand of the enemy “might serve Him without fear.”

    See the fulfillment in these passages:

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in the world. There is not fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love, we love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:17-19 NKJV)

“Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV)

    Because of Jesus’ sacrifice and establishment of the new covenant, we can now approach God ourselves. We can come to Him with proper awe and reverence and communicate with Him – a vastly different approach than that found under the old covenant! See Hebrews 9-13. We can serve Him without fear! We can know His complete will, all the commands, all the instruction – it is ours to know and obey (Colossians 1:26-28)!

    “…serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” – we can serve God without fear when we strive to be holy and righteous before Him all the days of our life! We know that holy means to be pure (physically) and morally blameless – just as God is (1 Peter 1:15-16). Righteousness in this verse means, to be justified, free, or innocent – which is exactly what Christ’s sacrifice made allowance for – see Colossians 1:19-23.

    Zacharias’ joyed in knowing God's promise was about to be fulfilled, we can joy even more so in knowing that it is fulfilled and we can now reap the bounty of benefits found only in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-14)! We can be a child of God (1 John 3:1-3)!! We can reverently serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness! 

    If you have been reconciled through Christ, make it your daily determination to be holy in all your conduct and do all you can to learn and live righteously in God's sight!

You can do it! So can I!!