Prepare the way

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

PREPARE THE WAY

Matt 3:1-10

3:1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2 and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

"A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"  

4 John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

NIV

In the process of making the journey through one of the gospels it is difficult not to reference the other gospels, especially when they have further details about some events. Here we have gone from the Magi visiting the Christ child, Joseph making their escape to Egypt and their return to the region of Galilee. John was just an infant or small child as well and now here we are both Jesus and John as grown men both about thirty years of age, give or take. It seems Matthew rushes right through to get the good stuff. The Gospel of Mark was even more in a hurry, starting right out with this narrative about John being in the wilderness, baptizing. However the words of John bring a great deal of importance to the people as well as to us. There is a certain need to prepare, it is to repent. The only way we can make straight the path of the Lord is to repent. We say we have accepted Jesus Christ into our heart. But in reality that does not mean he actually lives in our heart, the Spirit lives within us. He permeates our being. Our heart is but a muscle that pumps blood throughout our body. The Spirit dwells within our being, our mind, our continence, our consciousness. But the Spirit will not occupy the same space with the devil. What does righteousness have in common with unrighteousness? What agreement is their between the temple of God and idols? All this is wrapped up in the word, repent. This Greek word translated as repent means to think differently, to change one’s mind. This agrees with the concept that we are admonished to take off the old self and put on the new self. To change the way we think about everything, specifically about salvation, eternal life, Jesus Christ. In order for us to be born again, to be saved, to be free from the guilt of sin, we must change our mind, change the way we think. That requires the acknowledgement of sin. To change we need to first know what we are changing from. This narrative tells us the people confessed their sin and they were baptized.  They acknowledge they needed to be changed, to have repentance. There is still more to this truth as we see what John said to the Pharisees when they showed up at the Jordon. He called them a brood of vipers. But the real truth here is in the fact that we must produce fruit that is in keeping with the change in our thinking. Once we were without Christ, without the Spirit dwelling within us and we were wretched sinners, our minds were bent toward evil all the time. We did not think about righteousness because we thought about unrighteousness and thus we produced bad fruit. But we needed to repent, to change our thought process and in doing so we made straight the path for the Lord to enter our consciousness, our being. Once this happened we began to produce good fruit. We are very aware of the fruit of the Spirit as told to us in Galatians. This is the fruit John is talking about, the fruit of the Spirit, not our fruit. He produces that fruit within us. The point is that if we do not change our way of thinking, acknowledging our sin, making straight the path for Jesus to come into our lives and thus have the Spirit producing the good fruit in us, we are doomed to be cut down and thrown into the fire. This would be the second death, the lake of burning sulfur as spoken about in the revelation giving to the Apostle John. Once again we have to come to terms with the simple fact, we have to change our thinking, and it is up to us to have a change of mind. The Spirit can convict every person on earth, but the person must change their mind, they must repent, preparing the way for the Lord. We prepare the way for the Lord by changing our thinking.