Daily Devotional – 12/24/13 “Birth your blessing”

On this day many years ago, I can only imagine Mary, 9 months pregnant with God’s only Son. Mary, whose feet were probably swollen, stomach was big, back was hurting yet she had somewhere to be. Mary a regular girl, chosen by God to do something irregular and who went on to birth her blessing. Yea, she labored through the pain to push out a Prophet. She accepted the mess folks talked about her to birth a Messiah. She endured just so that she could birth Emmanuel. Oh, I can only imagine the joy she felt when she looked upon His face, the emotions running through her as she shared with others, the blessing she had just birthed in a stable for animals without even a place to lie. Yet, here we are today, living in a world with limitless possibilities and were too scared to even carry a blessing yet alone birth it. Yea, God gives us a gift and we’re so afraid of failure that we won’t even use it. We’d walk around pregnant with an expectant blessing yet we won’t birth it. WTF? Where’s the faith?

See, it doesn’t matter about the location of our birth or even the surroundings of our living that determines our gift because we, too, are destined for greatness for in Jeremiah 1:5 God tells me “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” Oh, you thought your past arrest record would hinder you but it won’t. You thought your past addiction would stop you from prospering but it can’t. You thought that old disease was going to take you out and you even thought all of the hell you’ve been through would break you down but it shall not. No, because it doesn’t matter about your location, whether you’re up or down and it doesn’t really matter about your circumstances because God doesn’t call the qualified but he qualifies those he calls. Don’t you know by now that He can take you; a drug addict, alcoholic, whoremonger, adulterer, liar, backbiter and sinner; pick you up, put you through the fire to erase everything you’ve done in the past and bring you out shining like pure gold? Psalm 71:20 says, “You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth.”

God isn’t worried about where you used to be as long as you birth that which He has put on the inside of you. I know your journey may have some bumps called haters to go over, some potholes called enemies to go around, some ice called lies to slide on and some dead-ends called mistakes that make you want to turn around but go on because it’s your journey! God is in the renewing business and once you’ve been renewed, you’ll be refreshed and with refreshing comes restoration and with restoring comes a new shine that’ll make you look brand new then all of the old things won’t matter because if you’re in Christ, you’re a new creature and all of the old things are passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17). It doesn’t matter that you were abused, because God can heal you. It doesn’t matter if you use to steal because God will forgive you. It doesn’t matter about what folks say because God already has you’re future planned and not even the devil can change that. So, stop allowing stuff to hinder the blessing that you’ve been holding. In other words, use your gift that’s growing on the inside of you! Birth your blessing and then raise it so that it makes room for you!