Anna, a prophetess, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher,1 and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. 37 Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. 38 She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.
Luke 2:36-38
I love and appreciate that God allowed Anna, who had heard prophecies about the coming Messiah for many years, not only to believe in Him but to meet Him face to face. Luke wrote that, “She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.”
Anna, one of the few prophetesses mentioned in the Bible. “She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying” (Luke 2:37). After becoming a widow, Anna dedicated herself wholly to the Lord. She never left the temple in Jerusalem but spent her time worshiping, fasting, and praying. Her many years of sacrifice and service were worth it all when she came face-to-face with Jesus, the Messiah, the One for whom she had waited so long. I see the fingerprints of God in the timing described by Luke with these words: “She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God.” What stands out to me most is not only her devotion but her delight in seeing Him turned into praising Him and then to sharing Him with “everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.”
Friends, may we be faithful and alert, like Anna, so that we do not miss the presence and work of Jesus in and around our lives. When we see Him, may we faithfully praise Him, and, like Anna, may we then faithfully proclaim Him to everyone.
based on the LGG Study – Lent, Drawing Close to God / w1d4
Scripture: Jonah 3:5-9; Luke 2:36-38 / SOAP: Jonah 3:5 and Luke 2:37
Borrowed, in part, from the LGG Study Journal for Lent, Drawing Close to God/pg 54
She had spent the majority of her life at the temple worshiping God, fasting, and praying. Her discipline and commitment to God, and to spiritual disiciplines like fasting, enabled her to listen and respond to God’s prompting. When Mary, Joseph, and Jesus arrive, she blessed them and tose around them by prophesying who Jesus was.
Love God Greatly Lent Journal, pg 54
I love the story of Anna, but in all the times I’ve read her story, I don’t think I have ever equated her fasting as being instrumental in prompting her to pronounce a blessing on Jesus and His parents. It’s sweet inspiration, though, to consider that it was her spiritual disciplines, like fasting, that enabled her to listen and respond to the Holy Family when they entered the Temple.
The Jonah passage had an ‘a-ha’ moment as well. What’s not to love about the story of Jonah and the whale? However, I must confess that the people immediately fasting and putting on sackcloth is not one of the top 5 or even 10 facts on the list of “things I remember” about the story of Jonah. However, I love the lesson the LGG team highlights about their fasting. –
Fasting was a means by which the people of Nineveh aligned their hearts to God. They saw the wickedness in their hearts and removed it. Their fast was a physical representation of their spiritual reality.
Love God Greatly Lent Journal, pg 54
The journal entry concludes with wonderful words of encouragement for anyone considering making a Biblical fast part of your spiritual discipline.
While our fasting should not be done to show to others or to impress them, the result of us drawing closer to God by fasting will encourage those around us. When our hearts are aligned with God’s purposes, when our motives for fasting are to grow in our relationship with God, He can fill our hearts with His love for others and make us a blessing in ways we may not even see or know.
Love God Greatly Lent Journal, pg 54
Let’s ask God to work in our lives so that we can bless and encourage those around us today.
Reflection on the Journey
How does fasting encourage others?
Why is corporate fasting important in the body of Christ?
Today’s Scripture is Luke chapter 2. (SOAP verses 10-12)
but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” Luke 2:10-12
Oh, how I love this chapter of the Bible, the cast and characters of Christmas on grand but humble display. Shepherds and angels, Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus, Simeon and Anna the prophetess who had both faithfully waited for the promised Messiah … Each of them a beautiful part of the Christmas story – the Advent of our Christ.
I know it’s easy to zero in on the soap passage, but I invite and encourage you to read each verse with fresh eyes and an undistracted mind that takes it all in as though it were unfolding before you on a stage with all the pageantry of Christmas. Walk with Mary and Joseph on the streets of Bethlehem, see the baby lying in the manger, Mary and Joseph in awe and wonder of it all. Listen with the shepherds to the angelic announcement and to the army of angels proclaiming – “glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will to men!” Hear the words of Simeon and Anna the hope fulfilled and the worship that poured forth. I pray that it will lead you, on this last day of our journey, to stop and worship Christ, the new born King – saying with the angels – “Glory to God in the Highest!”
“Rejoice rejoice of Christian, lift up your voice and sing – Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ the King – The hope of all who find Him …” the long awaited and promised Messiah! May we, like Simeon, find ourselves saying, “-my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” And, and like Anna – may we give thanks to God and speak about the Messiah to all who need the salvation He came to bring.
As we read about Hannah, Anna, Rachel, Hagar, and The Woman at the Well this week we learned the need to stay surrendered to God in prayer. Prayer is the act of seeking God, and as Hanna learned, it requires that we keep our eyes on Him and not the people or situations of our lives. Continual prayer, as we saw in Anna, keeps our cares in God’s hands and not our own. Because Anna lived this way and wasn’t caught up with the cares of the world she was acutely aware when she was in the presence of the Long awaited Messiah and she was free to make Him known to others. While we heard Rachel call out to her husband for a child rather than God, we see that God still took notice of her and became the “hero of the story” for Rachel – who acknowledged with “Joseph”, the name of her firstborn, that she knew exactly who was responsible for making her a mother. When we see God work on our behalf it strengthens or perhaps awakens our belief in Him. Through Hagar we witnessed the beauty of knowing God sees us and how it plays such a vital part in our prayer life with Him as it gives us hope and strength and peace in our journey. Finally, it was was the woman at the well that reminded us to keep our eyes, not on our past(regrets or shame) but on what Jesus can do, has done, and will do for us who believe.
Living like this doesn’t mean we will not face struggles in our lives but rather that when we do we will pour out our souls to Him rather than live in anger, resentment, doubt, fear, shame, self-centeredness, or disbelief. Making our lives a lifestyle of prayer will lead us to the perfect peace as both Isaiah and Paul talked about in their writings when they said:
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You.
Isaiah 26:3
Don’t be worried about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for what He’s already done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
If you missed any of this week’s devotions from me you’ll find them at this link
If you missed any of the Love God Greatly Blogs for week 3 you’ll find them at these links:
She had lived as a widow since then for eighty-four years. She never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment, she came up to them and began to give thanks to God and to speak about the child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
MY OBSERVATIONS:
Wow! How can one small passage pack such an amazing message? From the obvious to the somewhat obscure, this familiar passage held so much that jumped off the page as though I had never read it before in my life.
helpful background details
Anna was a prophetess (verse 36), which means she was a woman who proclaimed God’s WORD – speaking everything God gave her to speak – and boy, did He give her a lot to speak on this day.
As verse 36 tells us, Anna was the “daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher“, meaning she was a descendant of Jacob.
When verse 38 says, “At that moment”, it is referring to the time Mary and Joseph had come to the Temple to present Jesus to the LORD; setting Him apart to the LORD was fulfilling the law’s requirement for every firstborn male.
Anna
Anna spent her life at the Temple. She worshiped God through fasting and praying both night and day, clearly she was devoted to God. In 2022, my Pastor preached on ‘worship’ as part of a series titled “The 7 Habits of Deeply Spiritual People”. The first, and what I believe he called the core habit, is “worship”. He shared several definitions of worship, including:
“giving or showing someone their worth“
“the outpouring of a soul because we’re at rest with God“
“the occupation of the heart with God Himself”
and “a conscious passion to glorify God in everything because He alone is deserving”
Pastor Lemming made the point that this type of worship only happens when we see God for who He really is. Clearly, Anna saw God for who He really was, and because she did, she was able to see Jesus, even as a young child, for who He really was – the long-awaited Messiah! It was her surrender that fueled her awareness of who He was, which in turn fueled her mission to “speak about the child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem”.
Essential to Anna’s story and her worship is that she was a prayer warrior. She’s actually a great example of what Paul instructed the Colossians to be like in Colossians 4:2, when he said: “Be devoted to prayer.”
Be devoted to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.
Colossians 4:2
Note again Anna’s reaction in verse 38, “At that moment, [Anna] came up to [Mary and Joseph, and Jesus] to give thanks to God and to speak about the child, [Jesus], to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” With a heart beautifully surrendered to God, Anna was positioned to see and be a part of God’s presence and work.
How Then Should We Live?
Surely we are to live beautifully surrendered like Anna, daily worshiping God. We may not be at the physical “temple” night and day as she was, but what hit me as I was reading and digesting the passage were the words of Paul to the Corinthians that – we, our physical bodies, are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and was given to us by God. We are meant to worship God – showing Him His worth, recognizing His vast superiority, having a conscious passion to glorify Him in everything – “night and day”, just like Anna.
We are meant to proclaim Jesus just like Anna, for Jesus is the Gospel message, the very message that Paul said is the “power of God for salvation”.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:16 NET
We are to be devoted to prayer as she was; it should not be something we only do in the morning and evening or when we have a desperate need. We are meant to pray “without ceasing”, staying alert to the opportunities and needs throughout the day to call on or cry out praises to Him on our own behalf or for others.
Prayer Response
Father – what beautiful words and instruction from a Scripture passage so familiar and yet somehow so new. Help us to live like Anna – devoted to You in every way – worshiping You night and day, fixed on You, unceasing in prayer, and unashamed to proclaim Jesus! ~ In the name of Jesus, so let it be ~
Me From the Inside Out 