Today’s scripture: Luke 1:67-80 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Ben Lamb):
What a big job John was given: announce the adult Jesus to the world! And he had to do it alone as one human, without assistance from a chorus of singing angels to tell the people or a GPS-enabled moving star to personally guide others.
I’d never given it much thought before writing this, but God didn’t choose a spectacular and flashy messenger to announce Jesus as an adult, as was the case for the new-born Jesus. In fact, John was a bit of an unusual fellow according to most accounts.
God’s decision about who would tell the world about Jesus is heartening for me. It’s all fine and dandy for famous personalities to tell oodles of people in large group settings throughout the world about Jesus, but it obviously is okay for average people, and even unusual ones — such as myself — to do it, too.
A couple of verses from the Amplified Bible translation are extra special to me:
74: “…that we, being delivered from the hand of our foes, might serve Him fearlessly.”
This is talking about physical, conquering foes, of course. But, what personal “foes” have you been delivered from, or need to be delivered from, in order to best serve God? What’s your plan of action?
76: “And you, little one, shall be called a prophet of the Most High, for you shall go on before the face of the Lord to make ready His ways”.
I used to believe that the position of “prophet” no longer exists since we’re not living in Biblical times. However, I’ve come to understand that the purpose of a prophet doesn’t have to be solely to announce future events as revealed by God. A prophet can also be “a person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression” (thefreedictionary.com).
With this new mindset, I believe that all of Jesus’ followers can go through life with a goal of working to “make ready His ways.” By this, I mean, unless we go about sharing Jesus with others, how else will they learn about God and the personification of love whom we call Jesus?
Thought for the day: Well-built and maintained roads are great in the physical world. On the spiritual level, there’s a need for intangible roads — from humans to God — that need to be built and maintained. We, as Jesus’ followers, can help to “make ready” those roads for others.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.