{"id":6543,"date":"2023-10-14T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6543"},"modified":"2023-10-11T16:43:38","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T22:43:38","slug":"whom-does-god-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6543","title":{"rendered":"Whom does God use?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Off we go into the story of Jesus as told by Luke, giving us details no one else does. For starters, let&#8217;s compare and contrast the two main characters in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+1&amp;version=ESV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Chapter 1<\/a>: Zechariah and Mary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Zechariah was an old man \/ Mary was a young woman.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zechariah was a priest \/ Mary was an &#8220;ordinary&#8221; layperson.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They both were visited by the Angel Gabriel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Both visits had to do with upcoming miracle pregnancies.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zechariah did not believe \/ Mary did believe.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Both gave inspired prophecy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And Mary said, \u201cMy soul magnifies the Lord,<br>and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,<br>for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;<br>for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name&#8230;&#8221; (Luke 1.46 &#8211; 49, ESV, <\/em>from <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+1%3A46-55&amp;version=ESV\" target=\"_blank\">Luke 1.46 &#8211; 55<\/a><em>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,<br>\u201cBlessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people<br>and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,<br>as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,<br>that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us&#8230;&#8221; Luke 1.67 &#8211; 71, ESV<\/em>, from <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+1%3A67+-+79&amp;version=ESV\" target=\"_blank\">Luke 1.67 &#8211; 79<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There don&#8217;t appear to be any disqualifications: young, old, men, women, weak faith (the religious professional!), strong faith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>For we are God\u2019s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to\u00a0do. (Ephesians 2.10, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Off we go into the story of Jesus as told by Luke, giving us details no one else does. For starters, let&#8217;s compare and contrast the two main characters in Chapter 1: Zechariah and Mary. And Mary said, \u201cMy soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked on the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6543\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Whom does God use?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1Hx","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6545,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6543\/revisions\/6545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}