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The Invasion Daily Devotional-11

by David Joynt on December 09, 2020


LUKE 1:57, 67-69 | 57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.

 67 Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: 68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David.”

 Imagination can be employed to daydream or speculate in idle ways. Holy imagination can build trust in the future God is bringing about. Notice the verb tenses in Zechariah’s statements. The birth of his son John indicates the arrival of the Messiah, for whom he will prepare the way. But Zechariah casts future events in the past tense. God has visited and has redeemed His people. Mary in her famous song also uses the past tense for coming events (see 1:47-54). Zechariah and Mary are so confident in God’s revealed purpose that they see it as an accomplished fact. For them, God’s holy purposes are irresistible realities.

 How confident are you that God will bring peace and salvation to the world and you?

 

Tags: imagination, realities

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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