Miriam (Part 2)

Miriam 3
"Jose, I am yours, you are mine, and we will be one.  I will be your wife.  Take me and make me the mother of your children."

"Miriam, you honor me with your spirit, soul, and body.  I give you the same honor.

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“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Luke 1:38

We are in the same position as Miriam and Mary.  The life of Jesus can be manifest to us and through us by His Spirit, but we have three choices:

1. We reject Christ completely, rejecting His Spirit.
2. We attempt to strain and struggle in our own strength to experience the Spirit of Christ.
3. We actively yield; as Francis Schaeffer says it, we are "actively passive."

We yield, as Mary yielded when the angel Gabriel announced that Mary would become the mother of the Son of God.  As Francis Schaeffer said, Mary could've responded in three ways:

• She could've said no to Gabriel, and to God, refusing to jeopardize her marriage to Joseph by this scandal.  This would've been understandable.
• She could say "yes," and then strain and struggle in spiritual ritual trying to give birth to a son without a man.  Of course we see the impossibility of this.
• She could do what she did, knowingly and willingly give her body to God to do what He had planned.  This was not a passive thoughtless act, nor did Mary attempt to accomplish the impossible by her own strength.  Like a wife yielding her body to her husband for impregnation, Mary yielded her body to the Lord.

We must do the same.
If we want the Spirit of Christ to fill us, we give our bodies to Him actively.
He will do the rest.  He will fill us and manifest His life to us and through us.