spirit reacted to the same great news. I believe that we can get great insight here between their interactions.

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Notice how her soul responded, my soul magnifies, that is an act of her will. While her spirit stated a fact, my spirit has rejoiced in what I was told. So that by nature our souls act and react, while our spirits put the emphasis on the facts as they are revealed to us.

 

Psalm 9:1-2 “I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart (spirit and soul); I will tell of all Your marvelous works (facts). I (David’s spirit speaking) will be glad and rejoice in You (a matter of fact); I will sing praise to Your name (David’s soul acting on the facts), O Most High.”

 

It may seem a little difficult at first, but if we consciously try to discern the difference between the spirit and the soul speaking, we can learn a great deal more from the narrative that we are reading.

 

We can do that while reading Scripture; we can also try to discern while we are communing with Jesus in prayer, if it is our spirit who is leading the conversation with Him, or if it is our soul that is doing the talking.

 

The issue here is faith; if our soul’s nature is to respond or act to the facts that it receives, and since our spirits by nature deal with the basics of the facts that are revealed to them, being trained in the art of knowing the one from the other can make all the difference in a time of crises or during the times when the Lord gives to us great spiritual revelation.

 

Luke 1:38 “Then Mary said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

 

Notice how it was Mary’s spirit who responded to the angel, Let it be to me according to your word, the fact of what was promised to her.

 

Luke 1:37 “For with God nothing will be impossible.”

 

Mary spoke through her spirit the fact that she believed everything that she was told—and accepted it as fact—and as soon as she did that, the angel left, the matter was closed.

 

Notice the difference between Mary’s response to the angel, and the response of Zacharias, the father to be of John the Baptist, when he was given the great news that he would be given a son who will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God:

 

Luke 1:18 “And Zacharias said to the angel, ‘How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.’”

 

Zacharias was reacting to the fact of his condition and the age of his wife, instead of reacting to the fact that an angel was giving him a promise from God Himself, the God who cannot lie.

 

His soul naturally responded to the limiting facts that he was surrounded with in the physical realm. Had he been spiritually minded—focused in the promises contained in the Word of God, he would, like Mary, rejoice in the fact that a messenger from God was talking to him, and he would have consented immediately.

 

Luke 1:19 “And the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.’”

 

God’s will was done anyway, for God’s plans cannot be thwarted by a man’s lack of faith, but Zacharias was unable to speak until he named his son John according to the command of the angel Gabriel.

 

Luke 1:20 “But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.”

 

It makes me wonder how many times I missed on realizing a promise from God, because I let my soul respond through the prism of the circumstances that surrounded me at that time, instead of letting my spirit rejoice in the fact that the One who was giving me His promise can never lie, and always fulfills what He promises to those who believe Him.

 

We can see the effects of this duality. If what God has promised us is a vital part of our Christian walk, we will receive it in their own time, but because of our lack of faith at the time that the promise was given, our abilities will be hindered until what was promised is realized.

 

The other part is, that if what was promised was not a vital part of our Christian walk, we will forfeit it and will have to do without it, until we learn to trust and rejoice in the fact that a promise from the Word of God deserves to be magnified within our souls, based on the fact that He who promised is faithful, no matter what the circumstances around us dictate.

 

Let us remember that as believers, we are all disciples, and as such, we are always learning how to truly follow Jesus.

 

There is redemption, so we should not let what we failed to receive in the past, keep us from receiving what our Lord has for us in the now.

 

Luke 1:68-69 “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.”

 

As soon as Zacharias named his son John, according to the word that the angel gave him, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied about God’s redemption and salvation, which are the facts and the acts of Christianity.

 

Let us take a sober look today at the facts on which our faith is founded, for they will determine how our soul will act and react, when faced with the unrelenting accusations and distortions against the Word of God that those of us who put our trust in it and its promises have to face daily.

 

Luke 1:70 “As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who have been since the world began.”

 

Do you believe that Adam was created or that man evolved?

 

God’s prophets have been since the world began, and they tell us not only that Adam was created, but how and why he was created, and how he was driven out from Paradise after the fall.

 

If you’ve fallen for the perverting influence of the theory of evolution, you have lost the facts, and have lost the will to act spiritually. The only expectation that you are left with after denying the facts, is to react and be driven by the ever changing winds of conformity to this world’s system.

 

If man evolved, then he is not a fallen creature; if he is not a fallen creature, then he does not need to be redeemed. If man does not need to be redeemed, then Jesus came and died for nothing.

 

Don’t you see the demonic connections? It is all about separating you from the only One who can save you from all your sins. Jesus told us that His Words are Spirit and that they are Truth, based on the fact that He is the Word of God who came in the flesh.

 

If at any time you deny the veracity of the Word of God, you also deny the deity of Jesus and the redemptive power of the blood of Jesus, for they are one and the same—these are the facts that act upon our souls, for either good or bad.

 

Luke 1:72 “To perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant.”

 

A covenant is a will, a promise to act on behalf of a fact—that fact being that after the fall of Adam, man was in dire need of God’s mercy, which God promised us that He would bring at His appointed time.

 

Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

 

If you believe that Jesus was just a good man, the son of Joseph, and that there were no angels talking with Mary and the others, and that Mary did not miraculously conceive Him by the power of the Holy Spirit, then you are still in your sins and are lost, that is the devil’s goal for your life.

 

Here is a fact—that once acknowledged—will require immediate action on the part of those who have been deceived by the devil.

 

Luke 1:77 “To give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins.”

 

Jesus did not stay a baby in a manger, He did not come into this world so that we could have presents on Christmas day. He grew up into a man, condemned the world of sin, then paid the penalty for all our sins by dying on an old rugged cross.

 

He rose from the dead on the third day, after showing Himself to many, He was taken up to heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God, making intercession for us, that we may come into the enlightening truth of the facts of who He really is and what He came to do.

 

Luke 1:79 “To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

Here is a fact that should cause all of us to act: Jesus is coming back soon, but this time He is coming to judge all those who failed to receive His free offer of salvation, and to deliver out of this world those of us who have believed in Him, and have trusted in His Word.

 

Acts 1:11 “Who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.’”

 

We have a clear choice, we can choose to act in response to the fact of the work of salvation that Jesus accomplished on our behalf, or we can ignore the facts and act to fulfill our fleeting selfish desires and be lost forever and ever.

 

That sounds like a no brainer, but it all depends on where you get your facts from. Here is one last fact for this lesson:

 

Psalm 119:89 “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.”

 

The advantage of getting our facts from the Word of God, is that it never changes, and it shall never pass away.

 

Every act of ours that is based in our love and desire for the Word of God to be the foundation for our lives, will never be forgotten either.

 

My soul magnifies the Lord, while my spirit is rejoicing in the fact that He loves me, and that He has redeemed my life from the pit!

 

Behold, He is coming quickly, and every eye shall see Him!