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My Soul Magnifies Jesus
Text: Luke 1:39 39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; 40 And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. 41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. 46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
The angel Gabriel is sent by God to Nazareth.
Don’t you just love it when you know you are on a good mission for God?
Wouldn’t it just be fun to be an angel?
Gabriel is headed for the household of Mary and Joseph. Gabriel steps into their home and begins talking to Mary. Mary is nervous, but the angel puts her at ease and tells her that she is going to become pregnant with the Savior of the world and that his name will be JESUS! Is that awesome or what?
This Jesus will be great, the Son of the Highest, and of His Kingdom there will be no end.
Mary was trying to make sense of how this would happen since she had never been with a man. She was a virgin. Gabriel answered that the Holy Ghost would overshadow her.
Just so that she would not be alone, the angel let Mary know that God also orchestrated for her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant (she went from being barren to having a prophet in her womb!), even though she was up in years. Isn’t is wonderful how that God often does His best work in pairs? (couples, the animals of Noah’s ark, sending out the disciples to minister)
So Mary quickly makes a beeline to Elizabeth’s house and says, “Hey cousin!” At that very moment, the baby inside Elizabeth starts doing cartwheels and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Ghost! Jesus doesn’t waste any time, does He?!!!!!!!
As Elizabeth is bubbling over with The Holy Ghost, she speaks rather loudly (like only a woman can ), and she says, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” This was an incredible encouragement to Mary. She came to Elizabeth troubled for obvious reasons (feeling like she might become an outcast to Israel and a possible embarrassment to her husband and family and wondering if anybody will believe her story), and now she is feeling greatly encouraged because she has a cousin whom she can trust and whom God is using to encourage and confirm.
Whenever we have been encouraged by another believer whom God has used, it’s always a good thing to return that blessing back to God through praising His name!
When God does a work in you, He separates you apart from the run-of-the mill crowd. You won’t be a boring person when God gets through with you…trust me on that one!
It was right here that Mary said, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. 50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
Mary stayed with her cousin for 3 months….I imagine there were times in the Holy Ghost that are not even recorded……the hard part for Jesus and John was that they couldn’t see each other….too much stuff in the way…. Get me out of this womb!
But seriously, do you think that Mary really understood the full scope of what was going on inside of her? Did she fully realize who it was that dwelt within her womb? The One who created her was now living in her…that is astounding!
Mary was carrying the Savior, the Messiah and she had very good reason to praise the Lord, but that does not mean that we don’t also have a very good reason to magnify the Lord….we also have the Messiah living inside of us! We have just as good of a reason to worship Jesus as Mary did!
Sometimes we are afraid to allow our spirits to be glad because of past disappointments, but I say that according to who Jesus is inside of us, we can be glad in Him and let it show without fear! The more we exercise joy in the Holy Ghost, the more we feel the relaxed authority to be who He really wants us to be!
We have to wake up and realize that as Holy Ghost fill people, we have just as close of a relationship with Jesus as did Mary in the spiritual realm. Granted Mary had the distinct privilege of watching Jesus grow up, but in terms of knowing God in a personal way, we too can know Him just as much as she did. Mary was not and is not a god….Mary was just as human as you and I and just as much in need of salvation as us.
If you are here and are not able to say this sincerely from you heart to the Lord, “My soul doth magnify the Lord” Then what you must do is to get down on your knees with Him and cry out to Jesus and ask Him to do a work of transformation in your heart….I am not just talking about being able to physically say the words, but I am talking about being so in love with Him and so consumed with Him that worship naturally flows upward from our soul unto God.
Some people are at a place in their lives where they cannot magnify God because they are too busy magnifying themselves…..we cannot do both at the same time. Jesus said in Mathew 23:12 “whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.“
We cannot be self-promoters and be worshippers of God at the same time.
I want us to pay special attention to the fact that worship is for every humble heart regardless of race, gender, age, or background. Once you get pride out of the way, you are ready to become a worshipper. That is where the Holy Ghost steps in. He works will all people in all places. You can worship right here, and you can worship at home. You can worship in your car, and you can worship at work. You can worship at school, and you can worship on your vacation. Jesus is the same everywhere!
We can worship Jesus in the midst of the congregation, and we can worship Him in solitude….we have both. Serving Jesus is awesome!
Not everyone is called to lead multitudes of people in worship music….Mary only had an audience of one….but she gave it her best and most sincere effort…..you don’t have to be in an audience of thousands for your worship to be noticed by God….God will be right there with you when its you and your family and from the depths of your soul you are saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord!”
Praise is something we can all do, no matter what our financial condition….you may be dirt poor, but your praise is precious!
You may not have the vocal cords of Myles Young or Melanie Elms, but when it’s from your soul, your praise touches the very heart of God!
This word that Mary used, “Magnify” means to to cause to be held in greater esteem or respect, to increase in significance, to enlarge in fact or in appearance. When we magnify God, we are causing what He already is to come to light in our own lives and to others around us! When you magnify something you increase the awareness of it….we want to become more personally aware of God’s presence in our own lives, and we want everyone around us to experience His presence.
Mary was most likely a woman of great culture who knew much about how to cope in life, but you need to know that you don’t have to be as culturized as Mary to magnify the Lord. You may not be able to carry a tune all that well and your voice may get cracked up and be behind on the verse, but you can still magnify the Lord with us!
O magnify the Lord with Me, let us exalt His name together!
God does not judge the value of your praise and worship by how good it sounds to the human ear! God judges the value of your praise according to the sincerity of your spirit!
God’s desire for us is that we all live a lifelong lifestyle of praise and worship. He wants us to keep going until the end. The spiritual rest and refreshing we all need comes in His presence.
Isaiah 28:12: This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing.
One word can spell the refreshing…JESUS
Let me say that there is no greater thing that we mortals can do but to magnify the Lord.
Praise is what Heaven does….praise is what we do….the only difference is that we have to struggle with the flesh to get to the place where we can praise, but one day the struggle will be over and praise will be forever spontaneous.
When we pass into our glorified state, magnifying Jesus will then become our eternal purpose. You see, to magnify Jesus means to show forth His greatness. We can make others have greater thoughts about Him. We ourselves can have greater and greater thoughts about Him. I believe that much of Christianity today is just surface praise and worship…..if we could ever start going really deep into the presence of Jehovah…..there is no telling what would happen!
Prayer is the end of preaching….yet prayer is not even the end….praise is after prayer…..prayer is simply the stalk of the wheat, but praise is actually the ear of the wheat….which becomes worship unto God….that is where the harvest takes place.
When God has been sincerely worshipped by human beings who were once sinful, that is the ultimate! Everything else is designed to bring us to this point…that is the reason why Satan wants to pervert music to bad and prevent it from being used for the glory of God. Satan understands that if people will use their musical talent for God, then God will be worshipped. That is why Satan wants to throw distractions in your way to your worship, keep your mind full of procrastination, and alienate your spirit from what really matters…..Satan knows that if we will ever tune into praise and worship….he is defeated. You cannot worship Jesus and stay the same old defeated self…..if you ever plug in, you will be victorious!!!!!!
To become a praiser like Mary, we must lay aside our own ways and take on a fresh direction of making the Glory of God our continual focus.
If it doesn’t bring glory to God, then I don’t want any part in it, but if it is a main avenue for His glory, count me in!
If your soul is bound up with murmuring, complaining and whining…put that to an end and begin praising God tonight. I promise you will begin to feel the difference. Often we allow the weather to greatly affect our mood, but when we are praisers, the weather can’t shut us down from our worship!
There is a better business than to be a grumbler and complainer….it’s the business of praise and worship…..that is a noble cause worth getting up out of bed early for!
If you think about Mary for just a moment….if anyone could have felt lifted up in themselves and felt justified about it…it could have been Mary, but instead, she magnified the Lord. When you get blessed, don’t get a big head, but magnify the Lord!
We can all take a lesson from Mary in how she magnified the Lord by bringing her own low estate to light and comparing it to the greatness of God….she said, He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
Furthermore, Mary made her praise personal….she said, “He that is mighty hath done to me great things”
She made it know that God is mighty but she did not stop there…she said that He did it to me…..it was personal and it was real…that is what makes our worship super special…when you know that everything Jesus did….He did it for you and me….
