When Mary asked the angel Gabriel how it was possible that she could become pregnant since she was still a virgin, the angel told her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you;” Gabriel followed up by saying, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
I love Mary’s remarkable response of total surrender to the will of God. She said, “Behold the bondslave of the Lord; done to me according to your word.” She surrendered her future, her reputation, and every dream she had ever had to the will of God. As a result of her radical surrender in childlike faith, the Holy Spirit immediately came upon her, and the power of the most high overshadowed all of her weaknesses and inabilities.
After the angel left, Mary immediately went to spend time with her cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. We are told in Luke 1 that when Mary entered the home of Zacharias, she greeted Elizabeth to let her know that she had arrived, and when Mary’s greeting reached Elizabeth’s ears, the in-wombed John the Baptist leaped in her womb for joy, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
What I want you to see is this, when a Christian is radically surrendered to the will of God, the Holy Spirit causes them to live overshadowed by the power of God, so much so that our very words carry the presence of the Jesus we carry, causing those within the sound of our voice to leap with joy and be filled with the Holy Spirit. When the power of the most high is overshadowing us, the sound of our voice transforms the environment around us effortlessly. Living the overshadowed life, hidden in and by Christ.