A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Isaiah 40:3)
Today is the second installment of our Advent messages. Advent means “coming” – that time of expectant waiting and preparation for the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as a baby in a manger and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Conquering King. Most churches use the four weeks leading up to Christmas Day to focus on the real meaning of the season.
On Monday we looked at waiting; today we will focus on preparing. It makes sense, does it not? While we are waiting, we are preparing for what we are waiting for. No one just plants seeds in the garden and waits for the harvest to come in. They plant, water, nurture, and prepare in order to maximize the harvest that will come in the fall.
So how are we to prepare for all we are waiting on from our Lord? There are two ways.
SIMPLIFY
Life if full of distractions, with countless voices vying for our attention. And those voices amp up during the Christmas season, with one advertisement after another hawking the latest products purporting to enhance our lives. It is easy to forget the reason for the season when we are so busy being busy. So how do we simplify as we are preparing in our waiting for Christmas? We learn the way of our Lord in two vital areas of our lives.
Prayer
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)
No one lived a busier life than our Lord Jesus Christ, yet His days were saturated in communion with His Father in heaven. Jesus continually retreated to pray, and we read that there were times when He would spend an entire night on His knees. Notice too that Jesus would go to prayer early in the morning, before the demands of the day engulfed Him, and He would find a solitary place to pray, so as to minimize distractions. Is this the confession of your life?
Word
“It is written . . .” “It is also written . . .” “For it is written . . .” (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10)
When Jesus was engaged in His battle with the devil during His wilderness experience, He fought back and conquered Satan with the Old Testament Scriptures (which was all that was available at that time). In order for Jesus to continually quote the Scriptures, He had to know the Scriptures; and to know the Scriptures, He had to be meditating on and marinating in them. Is this the confession of your life?
One of the best ways to prepare for Christmas is to simplify our lives, and the best way to simplify is to be on our knees with the Bible in hand. May that be the confession of all our lives!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 