A COMING CHANGE
You know, Christmas is a awesome time to talk about jesus isn’t it. It’s a time to reflect on how Gods plan started to involve all mankind into the path of redemption by the way of his son. One thing comes to my mind when preparing for todays message was about farming. How farming not only is vital to everyone of us, farming is not prejudice, not bias, not anything negative yet the sin we live in our lives affect farming. The food produced by farming is absolutely a key factor is our survival from a physical standpoint. In the farming world there is steps to take ensuring the crop is good and healthy to distribute.
Its not a simple 1, 2, 3 step process and bang boom you got crops, its much more involved isn’t it.
There is matters of preparation of the soil for the crop to grow, fertilizer to give it nourishment, planting the right kind of seeds and even the quality of them. How about equipment to do the actual planting and reaping. You cannot be a farmer without preparation can you?
In the food that is produced, there is waste involved, Food for thought is USDA stated in 2010 that over 31 percent of food produced was ultimately wasted and not fit for human consumption. I thought that statement was rather disturbing.
So being prepared for something comes with responsibility, a price to be paid or a cost, a measure of effort and then the reaping of the benefits are a result. Nowhere in scripture and even in our lives does God give us work without preparing us. But WE have to listen and act!
So lets look back on the days of Jesus, remember God has not spoken to Israel for four hundred years.
It was like a dead silence, and in the Old Testament the prophecies dictated the actual events leading up to Jesus’ coming. So who would prepare the way for Jesus!
Is it enough for Jesus just to come as the prophecy described?
So the Gospel of Mark shows us that God brought to them a highly motivated and anointed man whom was conceived by the Holy Spirit mind you, that to some seemed to be very wild and degrading demanour whom ate locust and honey, dressed much like a seriously deprived homeless man BUT that spoke Gospel and truth to everyone. A voice of one crying in the wilderness!
So I’m talking about John the Baptist! He way for Jesus by speaking the truth, getting peoples attention to wake up and to ultimately do something that God has instructed every child of God to do even in Old Testament, and that is to REPENT!
REPENT, what a word. In Greek it is met-am-el'-lom-ahee and is used here to ‘turn away from’, ‘make a change for good or better’.
So before Jesus even stepped onto the scene, man’s hearts was so corrupt that it was now time for a ‘new beginning’ a ‘new revelation’ to take place which God order to save us all ‘permanently’.
John relayed the one that was coming, the one he was sent to prepare the way for, was far superior to himself and every single person that ever lived to date! This I’m sure was kind of hard to swallow for many people especially the pharaisees and saducees.
Mark starts out with the words ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ’, gospel meaning ‘good news’ refers to the salvation through Christ. And it is this salvation through repentance that we ALL must adhere to friends! Every single one of us. This was Johns mission!
But knowing one part of the story, doesn’t qualify us to render a measure of understanding to ignore or even disqualify our responsibilities! Basically saying ‘IF YOU THINK I’M OK WITH GOD AND THE WAY I’M LIVING, I’M GOOD!’
That is FAR from what God wants us to come to the conclusion of! You can’t measure anything that is of God with your measuring cup! You cannot see Godly things through the eyes of flesh! All things that are of flesh is flesh, but all things that are of Spirit is spirit scripture says.
Preparing for a change is hard! A change takes preparations and sometimes beyond our realization. However, that does not mean its impossible, because with God ‘All Things Are Possible’.
Friends, when we get prepared for something much like the farmer I stated, we grow along the way! Our goal should never just get to the destination, but the journey that feeds us, aids us, keeps us, teaches us, etc…
Change within ourselves! Change that needs to happen before Christ can truly rule and reign in our lives.
I recently heard a pastor state this quote that I found really mesmerizing, “If being a Christian resulted from words and deeds only, then under Gods laws given down to moses to his people would have been enough. But sin still reigned in the lives of all people including believers. But what God wanted was something more permanent that words and deeds alone would not compare with. It would be a Saviour worthy to take on our sins, that ultimately we CHOOSE to accept that GIFT and LIVE with CHRIST IN US!”
Yes I am just as guilty in areas where Christ wants to rule but I am not there yet! It takes effort, it takes prayer, it takes wise counsel!
What I’m trying to portrait here friends, several hundred years before Jesus even came onto the scene, God was silent to the people. The people ignored God, put God to the side, placed God behind other false God’s, and so on… God never forgot them, but If the people only kept the faith, stayed strong in the will of God what a different story it would have been. Our best intentions, our most philosophical thoughts, our greatest achievements cannot match God’s pristine plan for each and every life on earth.
Prophet Jeremiah stated “I have plans for you, to give you hope and a future!”, Jesus tells us “I have come to give you life, and to give to you more abundantly!” Book of Psalms demonstrates God’s richest blessings is designed for those that believe and follow him, and on and on I can go.
Our walk friends is never promised to always be smooth, but riddled with spikes and deadly snares.
So friends I challenge you, preparing our lives to be better Christians is one part of it, but pray to God to dive deep into your life, what area is he not Lord and Master of. We may not even realize, which is scary thought, where God isn’t master of.
I am often reminded when cain killed able, God asked cain right before that “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you will do well, will you not be accepted, and if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, and you have to rule over it!”
What this is saying friends, cain had a choice, just as we do, cain could have went to God to conquer the sin that was compelling cain, but the sin took its first victim in human history!
Being prepared friends for Christ means we are to be ready in every area of our lives to receive him, allow him to work in and with us so his abundant blessings will indwell us continuingly. NO that doesn’t mean sin will no longer haunt us, it will until we die. What it does mean, we have a Saviour that is our best friend, a way to live more joyfully, happier, abundandtly and with better armour. IF we asked the Lord Jesus to be our personal Lord and Saviour, we will be saved. Christmas is a time not only to reflect, but to make a change as we should every day of the year. Emmanuel, God is with us! That is an awesome statement friends Amen.