Serving at His Pleasure

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

SERVING AT HIS PLEASURE

Luke 1:8-10

8 Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

 

The first truth that stands out to us is this is not a happen-stance situation, but a complete work of God for His expressed purpose. First, at just the precise time, Zechariah’s division was on temple duty. It is interesting that in Chronicles chapter 24 all the divisions of priests are listed and there are twenty-four divisions. So out of that number of divisions Zechariah’s was the one to serve at this time. We cannot find any data has to  how many priests in each division, but we know there were enough that they had to cast lots to see which priest would serve before God in the temple. Once again, no matter how many priests that were in the division, God ordained that Zechariah would be the one to serve before him. We will get to the conversation with the angel, but this scenario of a particular division and a particular man being chosen to serve before the God at this specific time in history so that Zechariah’s son, John would be at the precise place and time to introduce the Son of God to the world. This gives us a grand picture of the Sovereignty of Almighty God. This brings us to wonder, and yet not wonder that we have been born at the precise time God determined to the very parents he chose for us so that all our experiences would bring us to the exact place and time where the Spirit would convince us of the truth of God, and we accept his saving Grace, Jesus as our Lord and Savior, so that He would be able to use us for specific duties, at specific times, for us to serve before Him. He has chosen where we are to live, what church we are to serve in, for what time, and what type of service. Nothing has been done by casting lots in our lives, everything is about the purpose of God, so that we will be at the precise place and time that He needs us to be for the exact purpose He has determined. Just as Zachariah, we serve at the pleasure of God.