I learned something recently and I want to share it with you. One of those things I’m sure I’ve read a thousand times, maybe not that many, but a lot. I’ve read the Book of Luke before. I’m sure you have too. Look what the Lord said to Zechariah:
For he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He must never touch wine or hard liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. (NLT)
For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. (KJV)
Luke 1:15
Oh my goodness! Did the earth just stop rotating? Think about that for a minute. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit of God – you know, the essence of the Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace – God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity, before birth! The Holy Spirit, the power of God within us, inhabiting one of His chosen before he was born, in the womb, in utero. Frankly, this rocked my world! John was Spirit filled before delivery. Elizabeth carried John. John carried the Spirit. If John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit before he was born, what does that say about the sanctity of life?
I wonder how Elizabeth felt while John was being fearfully and wonderfully made inside her? I wonder if Elizabeth and Zechariah really understood the impact of the angel’s message? The Holy Spirit had not yet been made available to all believers. Yet the Spirit of God was always active, even in the beginning.
The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. Geneses 1:2
You see the Holy Spirit was the power behind John’s life and it is also the power behind our new life in Christ. It powered John’s birth and it powers our rebirth. Now I’m no John the Baptist, but I have been chosen to receive the Spirit, just like you. Look here:
How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:3-6
We were chosen even before creation. Get it? We were created before creation. Not physically created, but made a part of God’s plan. While the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. Say that a few times and let that sink in. While the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the earth we were in God’s plan.
A plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. And this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ – everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things happen just as he decided long ago. God’ purpose was that we who were the first to trust in Christ should praise our glorious God. And now you also have heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, who he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us everything he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people.
Ephesians 1:9-14
Here’s the point, John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit to be used by God. Nothing that John the Baptist accomplished could have been accomplished had the Holy Spirit not been living in him. Look what his job was – to prepare the way of the Lord! Just like John the Baptist, nothing we accomplish for God can be accomplished without the power of the Holy Spirit living in us.
For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death…You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. Romans 8:2,9
The power that hovered over the earth before it was formed, that filled the unborn child in Elizabeth’s womb, that rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven so that the Spirit could be available to all started with a baby, born in a manger.