The Tension of a New Highway

PREPARING our Highway to Heaven 

 

Today at our church, was the lightening of the second candle for Advent.  The first message was “Watch,” and the second is to: “Prepare.”  Isaiah prophesied about John the Baptist.

Isaiah 40:3-5  The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert, A highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

Pastor Jerry read from Isaiah 40:1-11 and from Mark 1:1-8. 

I took notes and edited his sermon.  - - When we think of highways, some are dangerous, with turns, and bumps. As engineers plan new routes, and better roads, the changes are safer and please us. 

In his Gospel book Mark was direct and abrupt as he took us straight to John the Baptist, a desert preacher, a wild looking man, simply clothed and eating locusts and wild honey.

Mark 1:7-8 And John preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.  I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

Isaiah offers comfort in the place of testing for the people were not where they wanted to be.  He presented Hope, that a Savior would come, but there was preparation needed.

John urges to prepare your hearts and repent from your sins.  His message filled a need as people flocked to hear his words.

Commitment may need to be renewed as God comes out to meet us. 

We may have been twisting and turning in our walk, and there have been rough places that need to be straightened out and perhaps widened out. 

God leaves the road improvement up to us; we might be following Christ, but have prejudices', are tight fisted with our money, not being kind to family and friends, refusing to use our talents to do God's work, dodging responsibility and ignoring the needs of others. 

These aspects of our lives take us on detours and hinder our Christian walk. 

We all come today on a Spiritual Highway, that might need to be engineered and pot holes need to be filled.  Likewise Spiritual bottlenecks need to be unblocked. 

We may need to sit in silence and listen to how God directs us to make these changes in our spiritual road.  We cannot change the highway that others walk, but it is necessary that we allow God to change "ME." 

Our world is a dangerous wilderness out there. 

We must build a signpost to guide others and join with them as we Prepare to take the straight newly paved highway. 

We are reminded that our Lord Christ Jesus is always by our side as we travel on His Highway.