Prepare ye the way of the Lord!!!!!

Isaiah 40: 3&4 tells us of a voice crying out in the wilderness ; *Prepare ye the way of the Lord.*. And in Matthew 3:1-3 we read that John the baptist is that voice mentioned in Isaiah. John's cry was to *Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.*

Webster's dictionary gives the meaning of the word prepare as > to make ready beforehand , to put in proper state of mind,to work out the details; the synonyms for prepare are: fit , fix, groom, prep, ready.

So in essence we are told that we need to make ready, to groom,  before Jesus comes back. Yes, when John the baptist was preaching this was a different time and It was the first coming of Christ but, the message still stands today for us.

John was telling us how to get ready. He was preaching that we need to repent and believe.  To repent means to turn from one's sin  and feel sorrow enough for it to change our lives. True repentance comes from a conviction of one's sin combined with a fearful expectation of a wrathful judgement from a Holy and Righteous God.

Example: when we have done something wrong and face judgement for it such as court with a judge , if we are repentant we feel sorry enough to change our ways . The judge will  tell us our punishment and impose it. But, with Jesus  if we are truly repentant of our sins enough to change our lives and believe in Him then he takes our punishment for us and it the sin is no longer remembered.

You ask, how does this message apply to those of us who are christians and have been saved?  We as christians need to repent first of all for being spiritually lazy. For sitting in the pews keeping them warm every Sunday and letting the pastors feed us the word but, we don't take that word out to those lost and dying people outside of the church. We sit back and wait for them top come in and hear for themselves.

We are all called to be like John. taking the gospel out and sharing it with the world. That is not just for certain people it is our commission as children of God. We may not have a wilderness as  John did and times might be a bit different than then, but there are still lost souls out there and probably more now than then. We need to reach out to as many as we can before Jesus comes back and we need to start doing it now. Time is getting shorter every day, we need to get busy, preparing the way.