God Planned Your Destiny Long Before Your Birth

By Rick Warren

"He has kept the promise he made to our ancestors, and has come to the help of his servant Israel. He has remembered to show mercy to Abraham and to all his descendants forever!" Luke 1:54-55 (TEV)

"You can't count on anybody else to always be there for you, but you can count on God."

Other people are going to break their promises to you. You know that. You've experienced it many times. But God keeps his promises always. You can't count on anybody else to always be there for you, but you can count on God.

Mary's song in Luke 1 ends with the theme of God's faithfulness. In verses 54-55, Mary says, "He has kept the promise he made to our ancestors, and has come to the help of his servant Israel. He has remembered to show mercy to Abraham and to all his descendants forever" (TEV).

What was the promise? What was Mary singing about? God made a promise to Abraham that the whole world would be blessed through him because God would send the Messiah through his family line. God kept his promise; 2000 years after he revealed his plan to Abraham, he now revealed to Mary the role she would have in God's plan.

Mary knew that her story and her destiny had started long before she was even born. In fact, hundreds of years before Mary, the prophet Isaiah said this, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14 NIV).

God planned your destiny long before you were even born. He planned it from the foundation of the earth. Psalm 139 says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (verse 16, NIV). God created you for your destiny, and your destiny is part of a long plan that extends before and after you. You can trust God on that.

Why? Because the Messiah did come, he came through Mary, and he died for our sins just as it was promised. And that is why we can fulfill our destiny.