Prepared for Christ[mas]

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

It happened in a store the other day when I had finished my purchase. The clerk asked, “Are you ready for Christmas?” “Ready for Christmas.” It took a couple of minutes for it to sink in. As I pulled out of the parking lot, it struck me, “Rick, are you ready for Christmas?”

The answer to that question really depends on how you define ready, and what you are ready for. So, let me ask it this way because it’s the way that it struck my heart, “Are you ready for Christ?” That gets to the heart of the matter

Get ready. Be prepared. The Christ is coming. That was a message preached by John the Baptizer. The Scriptures say that John was sent by God to get people ready, prepared, to meet Jesus. “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight’” [Matthew 3.1-3].

How did those people prepare for Christ? Matthew continues, “Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins” [5-6].

That’s how we prepare for Christ too. Repent. We don’t talk much about repentance anymore, but it’s an important subject in the Bible. It literally means to “turn away” or “turn around” or “turn from.” You’re going in a direction one moment, and then you repent. At that point, you start going in the opposite direction. In the spiritual sense, you turn from your sin and turn toward God. 

That’s was God’s way of preparing for the arrival of Christ according to Matthew. I think it is still His way today. And that’s what I call being prepared for Christ[mas]!

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40.3