Are You Willing To Serve God For The Rest Of Your Life?

1 John 2:12-17
Luke 2:36-40

Today we continue with the scene at the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple by Mary and Joseph and we hear of Anna, a widowed woman who spent her entire life serving as a witness to Christ.
Even though Anna was left childless and alone just after seven years of marriage, she spent the rest of her entire life living the choice to serve God through her prayer and praise, in a never-ending anticipation of his merciful grace. She specifically moved to Jerusalem so she could be near God and to his temple! Anna’s sole purpose in life was to worship and please God. She was constantly present in the temple; in a state of fasting and prayer.

William Barclay once wrote: She had known sorrow, but she had not grown bitter. She was old, but she had never ceased to hope. She never ceased to worship. She never ceased to pray.

As Simeon received the Christ child and lifted him up to declare him as the light of the nations and the long-expected Messiah, Anna was there also in the right place at the right time. Anna now knows that her prayers of seeing Christ have been answered, and she continues her ministry in bearing witness to what she has seen and heard.

Right from the very start, She has always loved God and not the world, and that love sustained her throughout her entire life. What about you? Are you determined to love God for the rest of your life? Are you willing to bear witness to him?

May God’s grace fill you as it did Anna, and may you have the dedication to our Lord, as did Anna, in service to the Almighty God in anticipation of his merciful reward. God bless.

Fr Joseph Osho