That's In The Bible???
(more than likely a title you will see here again)

Last week I had one of those encounters with the real, live Bible.  I was reading a familiar passage in Luke 1, Mary's visit to Elizabeth.  There, I read a verse which I had never seen or heard in my life--of course, I'm exaggerating...  I think...

Every time I read this passage before, the story stopped with Elizabeth telling Mary she was special and qualifying that quality in her by saying, "Even the baby in my womb jumped for joy" (Yes, I'm paraphrasing).  This has always been the cue for the soloist to start singing the Magnificat.  In my latest reading, however, Someone had inserted a new verse for me to read before we could commence with all the magnifying.  It said...
     And blessed is she who believed that there would
     be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

Yes, it really is there.  Luke 1:45.  Really, I'm not kidding!

All "not kidding" aside, this verse turned out to be a word that I really needed to hear.  For me, it spoke to me about the reason I was reading the Bible that day in the first place.  I read the Bible a lot, but as a pastor, there are many times when I do so for the sake of Sunday's sermon or Wednesday night's study.  This time, I was reading for me, and I got a blessing that tells me God is going to do what God promised.  Was Paul paraphrasing Elizabeth when he said:
    I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)?

That good work has been started in all of us.  Hail, friend, you are blessed, and it makes us all jump for joy!