It is Jesus

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

IT IS JESUS

Luke 1:67-79

67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

68 "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. 69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David 70(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),   71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us— 72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, 73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, 77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven 79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."

NIV

Once Zechariah got his voice back he said a mouthful of words, chuck full of truths about Jesus. Jesus is the horn of salvation. Jesus does in fact bring us salvation from our enemies and from the land who hate us. We need to consider who our enemy is and who lives in a land of all who hate us. It is not people who we need to worry about, but about the enemy of our soul, Satan and all his demons who hate us and desire to keep us from the salvation of the Lord. There is no real need to be saved from people, but there is surely a need to be saved from the prince of darkness. We also see Zechariah who was filled with the Spirit speaking about that very fact. People who live in darkness are in fact living in the realm of the evil one, under his dominion and it is Jesus only who is the light of the world who can shine into that darkness and bring salvation to those living there. We all were once in this world under the influence of the prince of darkness, whether we wanted to admit it or not. We might have thought it was our intellect, or our self that we lived by and for, but in actually that is exactly the influence he exerts upon his subjects. Satan is not concerned about getting open credit or praise, as long as he keeps people from seeing the truth about Jesus, he is content, thus keeping them within his realm, getting revenge against God. We are recipients of the tender mercy of our God because of the rising sun which will come to us from heaven. Now in the Greek that says the dayspring from on high. This could actually mean Jesus from heaven who will shine salvation into the dark realm of Satan. Everything said here is prophesy about Jesus. Knowing that we have been redeemed from that realm of darkness and that we are now living within the light, we can have full assurance, first of eternal life, and second of everlasting peace with God. We also can know that Jesus, being our Lord and Savior has full authority over our lives and as such will continually watch over us, and to make sure we can have full confidence of this he sent the Spirit to dwell with us until he returns to take us where he is. All this can only bring us great peace and joy. It is Jesus.