{"id":13800,"date":"2025-12-07T16:40:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T21:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?post_type=message&#038;p=13800"},"modified":"2026-01-08T09:44:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T14:44:32","slug":"the-annunciation","status":"publish","type":"message","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/message\/the-annunciation","title":{"rendered":"The Annunciation"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like Mary, many of us struggle to understand that God wants to do something significant in our lives. We look at our resumes, our past mistakes, or our current limitations, and we think, &#8220;God couldn&#8217;t possibly use me. I&#8217;m nothing special.&#8221; We tend to think God&#8217;s favor is something we have to earn, achieve, or qualify for. We need to know today that God\u2019s activity in our lives isn&#8217;t based on our performance, but on His unmerited favor. If we miss this, we miss the heart of the Gospel.<\/p>\n<p>Luke\u2019s account shows us a different way. It shows us that God breaks into ordinary history to reveal His extraordinary, unmerited grace to ordinary people.<\/p>\n<p>In the gospel according to Luke, he recorded how the angel Gabriel announced God\u2019s gracious favor to Mary, revealing the miraculous conception of God\u2019s Son and assuring her through God\u2019s Word and power so that she might respond in faithful submission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13801,"template":"","tags":[2015],"series":[2985],"scripture-book":[1309],"scripture-chapter":[1334],"speaker":[2007],"class_list":["post-13800","message","type-message","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-christmas","series-christmas-according-to-luke","scripture-book-luke","scripture-chapter-1334","speaker-gary-combs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/message"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13802,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13800\/revisions\/13802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13800"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=13800"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-book?post=13800"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-chapter?post=13800"},{"taxonomy":"speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker?post=13800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}