UNTANGLED: CONFUSED & CONFIRMED

Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”

²⁹ Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ³⁰ “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God!  Luke 1:28-30

Can you imagine?  Living your life....being a fairly decent, innocent, plain Jane, doing your best to honor God in the simplest of ways, and having an Angel tell you......YOU HAVE FOUND FAVOR WITH GOD!  Nowadays, some of us, we've become so ........so........self righteous in our faith that when someone says, I'm blessed we answer back...." and highly favored" or we'll say, " Oh yes, I am blessed and highly favored too....."  And sometimes I wonder how do you know that you are?   Mary was living such a humble and ordinary life (really doing what we all should be doing) that she didn't think of herself as "HIGHLY FAVORED" it took an Angel appearing to her to inform her of her stature in the sight of the LORD.   Notice it doesn't say Mary's response was......" You're right! I AM!" no she was confused it says and disturbed.  I'm sure she was confused about being highly favored (as to say why am I, and how am I) while she was disturbed because there was an Angel, you know a supernatural being.......standing in front of her.

How about you.....ARE YOU REALLY BLESSED and HIGHLY FAVORED?  Does it show by the way you LIVE & GIVE?  Here's my take, we ARE BLESSED without a doubt.  It's is because of God's mercy & grace that we are not dead!   Now we probably are HIGHLY FAVORED but we've told ourselves that to confirm who WE THINK WE ARE, but I wonder............really......seriously are we just confused, in that we don't LIVE and GIVE like we are favored.  How do I know that, how can I say that.......?  In a day or two we will cover Mary's response to what the Angel had to say, and what is really funny is that we SAY WE ARE HIGHLY FAVORED, but we rarely respond in complete humility and servitude to the call of GOD.  We tell ourselves Sunday's message was for them, or someone else, or we grab a cd for someone else, but do you go home and listen to it again?  Do you study & apply the actual message beyond Sunday morning?  Mary didn't have a Bible, just some scriptures that she hung onto or heard, and trusted in......enough to live humbly & obediently....is that you?  LGLP