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The Promise Is Already There
51 Plays1 day ago
The Promise Already There:
Advent episode on Luke 1:39-45
In this episode Margaux shares a recent revelation from Luke 1:39-45. Waiting isn’t always what we think it is. Did you know that the moment you believed, the promise began to grow? You are not waiting from something to happen- SOMETHING IS ALREADY HAPPENING. If God has given you a promise, you are already in process of receiving that promise. Even the very vibrations and experience of hearing Mary’s voice ( in her greeting to Elizabeth ) was FULL of the Holy Spirit - to the point that Elizabeth was overcome by the presence of God. And it was what was growing inside of her that caused her to release such a spirit- saturated greeting.
Reflection questions:
- Are we unaware of the same power that is being released in our voices?
- What are you carrying that God wants to be released into the world tthrough your voice?
- What are you waiting for?
- Who do you want to be while you are in the interim time?
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Email: margaux@permissiontoreign.com
Instagram: @permission_to_reign
Intro Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Image by Claire Fischer from Unsplash
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Breathing Underwater' and Advent Season
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We were designed to hunger for the deep things of God, to thrive on faith and wonder, to seek out divine wisdom that defies human logic. We were designed to unlock the mysteries of God.
00:00:14
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This is Breathing Underwater.
00:00:29
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Hello, my people, my people. i am so happy to be back with you. It's Margo. If you are new to the show, welcome. This is Breathing Underwater. We are in a unique season. We're in the Advent season right now. It's my absolute favorite. And every year we do something just a little bit different on the podcast. The last two years, we've done some Lectio Divina, some contemplative, meditative, ah time of really just listening and digging into scripture.
00:00:57
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This year, going to do something little
Mary's Visit to Elizabeth: A Fresh Perspective
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similar. We're going to be digging into a portion of the Christmas story today, but really to share a little revelation that I feel God has just dropped into my heart for myself as I have been um contemplating Advent and moving with Him in this time. But I believe that it is an encouragement for many of you as well.
00:01:24
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We're going to jump in today in the story of Mary actually going to visit Elizabeth right after the angel has encountered her and told her that she's going to have a baby immaculately.
00:01:38
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We're going to jump in right there. And you're probably familiar with this story, but I just invite you to listen with fresh ears And just like myself this year, I actually got an angle of revelation that that I haven't really seen before, probably partly because my heart wasn't entirely ready for it. I feel like God is so kind to just show us things in layers.
00:02:01
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And usually things come right when they need to. But something that I discovered this year really ministered to me, and I hope that it will for you as
Spiritual Encounter: Elizabeth's Revelation
00:02:10
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well. So this is going to be short and sweet, but I'm just so happy to be with you. Thanks for joining us today.
00:02:17
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So we're jumping in in Luke 1. And like I said, Mary has just had a visitation from the angel Gabriel telling her, you have been chosen. You are highly favored, Mary. And the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. He's going to overshadow you. And you're going to become pregnant miraculously, essentially.
00:02:37
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And it says that as soon as she had this encounter, she immediately, at least my word says, immediately went to go visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who was also six months pregnant through a miracle.
00:02:54
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And when she went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth has this incredibly spirit-filled experience of Mary showing up. I'm going to start reading here and then I'm going to jump in to the Word.
00:03:13
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so I'm going to start in Luke 1, 39. one thirty nine At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth, her cousin.
00:03:29
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When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Faith and God's Promises: Mary's Belief
00:03:38
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Okay, I'm going pause here. Elizabeth, her elderly cousin, had just miraculously become pregnant. In her old age, she had been barren all her life. She has a baby, John the Baptist, six months old inside of her womb. When Mary shows up right after having this encounter with the same angel that told her she would get pregnant, this is what happens.
00:04:02
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When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child that you bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
00:04:24
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As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.
00:04:40
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First of all, I have goosebumps on my body. It's such a powerful passage. But this is what I want to point out. First of all, Mary has just had this encounter with the angel.
00:04:52
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In verse 38, she basically says, I am the Lord's servant. May it be unto me as you have said. And then the angel left her. Verse 39, she got ready and hurried to the hill town, hail country of Judea to meet Elizabeth. So scripture doesn't
The Power of Words and Faith
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show us much time in between. We don't know if it was months that passed or weeks that passed, or if it was the next morning. Heck, I guess it could have been the same night, right? We don't really know here.
00:05:18
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But it's very clear that the very first thing that she did was to go to see her cousin. We can only speculate. Is it because she knew that her cousin would understand? Was it because she just needed to get away and ponder this? We don't know. Maybe it's both.
00:05:37
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But right away, she went to go see Elizabeth. And Elizabeth points out that there is a seed in her womb already.
00:05:51
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She says, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child that you bear. So Elizabeth likely did not know this already. Mary is showing up and the very sound of Mary's voice, just the sound of Mary's greeting caused the Holy Spirit to well up within Elizabeth and for her to have this revelation, whoa, the baby just leapt in my own stomach in response to a child that is in her womb. All of that was revealed in this moment where Mary actually opened her mouth in greeting.
00:06:28
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This is my first curiosity. Like, what was it about her voice? Was the actual vibration and energy of what had been seated in her womb already, was that carried in her voice, in the tone of her voice?
00:06:47
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So often we can easily think that our voice doesn't really matter. Oh, I don't need to speak up about that thing. It probably isn't a big deal. I'll let somebody else speak up about that. Or maybe somebody's told you, hey, keep quiet. You're talking too much. Like you don't need to take up so so much space.
00:07:04
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And this is just a little aside, but wow, look at the power of Mary's voice, what it communicated in the unseen realm to the point where Elizabeth was filled with revelation over what was happening.
00:07:18
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It didn't say, as soon as I saw you, she didn't say, as soon as you told me the baby left in my womb, as soon as I heard your greeting.
Faith as a Metaphor for Pregnancy
00:07:29
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Isn't that interesting?
00:07:30
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Okay, that's just an aside. What I really wanted to get to here, and this is what God revealed to me, was the fact that in verse 45, Elizabeth says to Mary, blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.
00:07:51
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For some reason this year, it really stood out to me reading this, that this is past tense. She says, blessed is she who has believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. Not blessed is she who is believing. Blessed is she who believed as if her belief was over.
00:08:08
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but As if her belief wasn't still happening. And this is in reference to the fact that there's a a child in your womb. Blessed is she who believed. This to me is communicating the moment Mary believed it was done.
00:08:30
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The moment she believed what the angel said, the promise began to grow in her. Now, do we know the exact moment that the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and the baby miraculously started to grow? No, we don't. But obviously already Elizabeth senses that very seed in her. And what I felt the Lord speaking to us is the metaphor of this in our own life.
00:08:57
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So many of us have promises from God. Many of them probably hard to believe. Similar to Mary, we might be like, oh, how is this possible? But the moment we believe the promise of God, the process begins.
00:09:14
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The moment we say, yes, even if it's in an instant and we say, let it be done to me as you have said, that moment, the promise is seeded within us and it begins to grow.
00:09:27
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This is a new revelation for me this year, or maybe it's just the confirmation of something deep that my heart has been, is asking is so often we think God gave us a promise. And now all this waiting time is this time in between him doing what he said he was going to do and him saying he was going to do it.
00:09:47
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When in fact, this waiting time is the growth of the fulfillment within us. The moment he says it and we believe, it begins.
Nurturing Faith and Understanding Waiting
00:10:02
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And then he grows within us the promise. He grows within us the capacity and the preparation to receive and hold and fully receive what he wants to give give us, knowing exactly how long that will take. For some of us, it's a lot longer than for others.
00:10:23
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And some promises are seeded and have a longer waiting time than others. But I think so often this interim time can feel like I'm just grasping and waiting for the thing to happen. This is a time where I'm just trying to not really think about how hard this is. I'm numbing out. I'm just going to go about my life. do to to tooo And when it happens, it happens. But that's actually, i don't believe that's true.
00:10:53
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I believe that just like Mary, the moment we believed, past tense, the promise started to grow. And even now, you've been waiting maybe six months. Maybe you've been waiting six years. Maybe you've been waiting 16 years.
00:11:10
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But in this, this promise is growing. The fulfillment is on its way. It is... The waiting for it is shaping you and allowing you to become more of who you truly are. And the Holy Spirit is working and aligning and creating and bringing things together in His perfect timing.
00:11:32
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Even now, you are not separate from that promise. It is seeded within you and it is growing. I heard this amazing quote the other day from Henry Nowen that actually speaks this exact revelation that I felt God had just deepened within me. He says, as people wait for a promise, they are aware that they have received something that is then at work in them already.
00:11:59
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like a seed that has started to grow. Look at this. This is what I was just saying. And this promise is what nurtures them and sustains them and enables them to stay where they are.
00:12:11
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He says that they know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. The secret to waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted and that something has already begun.
00:12:29
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This feels so much like that story of Elizabeth and Mary. She had just received this word. It is very likely she had no idea that she was pregnant yet. This was so fast.
00:12:41
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And yet all it took was that faith.
00:12:46
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And Elizabeth immediately recognized, even just from the sound of her voice, what she was carrying. And that is when it began growing. My friends, while you wait for the fulfillment to be fully revealed, I just encourage you and even challenge you like I am with myself,
00:13:08
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to not look at it as I am waiting for something to happen. I am separate. I am over here on this side of the river and I'm waiting to get to the other side of the river. I'm waiting for a bridge to appear. I am waiting for the water to be parted. more More than that, you are actually already walking toward bridge promise is at work within you. And while you are waiting for it to be revealed, you are actively growing this thing. You are growing the promise within you. And I know that our enemy would love nothing more to than to try and abort this baby. And I know one of the ways he does that is by getting us to doubt that anything has been planted at all. Like, probably nothing there, probably doesn't matter, gets us into doubt. Rather than, like a mother, aware of what she's carrying, we nurture, we pray over, we protect ourselves.
00:14:09
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Sure, we might have moments where we're so discouraged that that hope feels really challenged. It feels like, is anything happening? It's been 16 years. It's been 26 years. It's been three years.
00:14:23
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Is anything happening? But just like Henry Nouwen said, he said, that's the secret is that we have the faith that the seed has been planted and that something has already begun.
00:14:37
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I just challenge you in this season to cherish what has been growing within you, to ask God to show you from that first moment
Embracing Waiting as Active Growth
00:14:46
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he gave you that promise. Maybe it was recently, maybe it was a long time ago, but allow him to take you back there and show you what he seeded in you in that moment.
00:14:57
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Let him show you what he has been developing in you during this time where you haven't seen something come to fruition yet. And I would even say, ask yourself, this is what I'm asking myself, who do I want to be in the midst of this waiting?
00:15:16
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I have a choice to make. God is growing this. He is the one that is going to bring it ultimately to fruition. I have no control over the timing in the same way a mother has no control over over when that baby's actually going to come. Absolutely no control.
00:15:32
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But I can steward my heart. I can stay in faith. I can stay close to God. And that's the kind of woman I want to be. In the midst of this, am I going to be the type of person that says, I don't see anything and so nothing has happened?
00:15:46
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Or am I going to be the person that says, but that's not who God is and that's not the way the kingdom works. The kingdom works that a seed is planted the moment we say yes and receive.
00:15:57
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Something is happening. God is always moving and working in the unseen. He is always filling us and giving us life. He is with us in the moment to moment. We're not waiting for God to come. He is with us. He is Emmanuel.
00:16:13
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How do we reconnect to that truth in this Advent time?
00:16:20
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I'm going to leave you with that. I hope that you are encouraged to really sit back and go, wow, God has been god has been growing this promise inside of me all of this time. He hasn't forgotten.
00:16:32
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He's not waiting for the moment. to just drop it into my lap. It is, it's growing within me now. It is growing within my life now. And I pray that you actually have this stillness in the season that you, that you seek and find the stillness and the quiet in your own heart so that you can actually begin to see that thing that God has already begun weaving in your life.
00:16:59
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Okay, you all, I love you much. I hope you have the most sacred of holidays, that you have a wonderful connection with the Holy Spirit and the truth that our Jesus, the word becoming flesh, a promise to so many for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years actually came in the flesh. That promise was fulfilled. Your promise too will be fulfilled.
00:17:27
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I love you all. I'll see you next year.