This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Then they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” ’, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, ‘Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, ‘I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’ This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. (John 1:19-28, NRSV)
I am the voice of one crying, “In the wilderness make straight the paths of the Lord!”
John was crying in the wilderness and that we need to make straight paths in the wilderness…
The wilderness is not the forest! In John’s and Jesus’ day the wilderness was the barren land. The land of sand…
It is where people would not be. And today, the wilderness is where God is not.
And you might be saying, “there is no where God is not there.” And you would be correct. Yet He is not accepted every where!
What are you doing to prepare the way of the Lord?
What are you doing that is helping others to see Jesus clearer?
What are you doing to make straight paths and to help people know His grace and mercy?
John was not the only one crying in the wilderness, that task also falls to you.
So go and cry in the wilderness of your every day, and make straight the paths of the Lord!
aSacredRebel 