We are greatly troubled when it comes to accepting favor because we suffer from the “Hail Mary Sin-Drome.”
We focus on the word virgin—and there the comparisons begin. We are not like her, we are not special as she was, and we are not pure like her, so we conclude that we are not someone the Holy Spirit would ever want to fill.
We think, therefore, that we are not favored.
This is what happened to me.
I saw the infilling of the Holy Spirit as the reward for reaching an unattainable goal.
I believe the fact that God used a virgin shows us that there is no other way to become filled with the life of God except by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. That which was in her was not from her—it was divine, unexplainable, and unattainable. Could it be that a “virgin womb” was just a prototype of a clean slate—an empty space, a place so barren that unless someone divine comes and fills it, it shall remain as it is? All the trying in the world can’t fill it, and like Mary, the only way we can do anything for God is by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit!
So could it be that Mary’s response to favor is the only appropriate response: “May it be unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38, mev)?
In other words, I don’t understand it, I know I definitely don’t deserve it, but let it be done unto me as You say!
After Mary responded as she did, the Bible says then she began to worship. Worship is simply the response that comes from being accepted. My friends David and Nicole Binion, truly two of the greatest worship leaders and worshippers of our time, teach that real worship is simply love responding to love.
The depth of our worship comes only from knowing the depths of how much we are loved!
We must accept being accepted.
We must accept that we too are highly favored just because!
If we don’t accept this basic, fundamental truth, the enemy will leave us spiritually impoverished and bankrupt. We will be like spiritual orphans. The more we realize that we are accepted by God “just because,” the more we will walk in victory no matter what challenges we might face. The hymn writer Frances J. Roberts wrote, “I have loved you simply because I have loved you, and what other reason do I need?”1
We need a spiritual DNC, a “deep-needed cleaning”—a brain wash! We need a washing of the brain of a heart that has been clogged by wrong thinking.
Come on, let’s get what we know in our heads eighteen inches down into our hearts. Let’s ask the Lord to help us remove all those distortions, stereotypes, false beliefs, legalistic attitudes, and every accusation that tells us we are not good enough. We are just eighteen inches away from the peace of mind that comes with knowing we are accepted!
Lord, Your Word clearly instructs us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, so I will do as it says. I’m not going to put my trust in my circumstances, past or present, nor go by what I see. Instead I am going to put all my trust in You, and You will make every crooked path straight as I acknowledge You and Your Word in all my ways for all of my days! In Jesus’s name, amen.
Copyright © 2015 by Maria Durso, All Rights Reserved. Purchase a copy of my new book, From Your Head to Your Heart, on Amazon here.
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