back to Juan.

John the Baptist prepares the way. thats the little title my bible has for Luke 3, matthew 3, and mark 1. In John it says "the testimony of John the baptist."

ok, so this guy is in all 4 gospels. why? lets ask him, Who are you? "I am not the Christ"(john 1.20).

great. not jesus, got it. Then what? "But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them." luke 3.

John the Baptist was sent by God (remember the miracle of Zechariah and Elizabeth??) His role always kinda confused me... wasnt jesus good enough? of course he was.

John's goal was simply to prepare anyone who would listen. The prophet malachi wrote "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty." many believe this is referring to John. when he came he preached repentance for the people of Israel, he baptized people with water in the jordan river, and told them that the one who was coming(jesus) would baptize them with the holy spirit.

some people have gone crazy with some of this language and taken it to mean all sorts of things. What i want to focus on today is that he says jesus is coming, and you need to be ready for him. this man is not like me, im not even fit to tie his sandals... he is going to shake up this world in ways you cant even imagine.. BE READY. John was a prophet, the Lord revealed to him what was to come... we was sold out on telling the people of Israel to be ready for Jesus.

Why dont you? sure you may not wear camel hair and eat locusts(john did), but Jesus told us he is coming back, which we will get to, but for now take me word for it, why arent we telling more people and getting ready?

See, easter is a reminder that Jesus DIED, but rose again... so that he might one day return. I think about John and his ministry of preparing people and thats what i want. i want to shout it from the rooftops that Jesus is Lord and he will return. not in a crazy way... but how i live and love. I want people to see Him in me.

this is life. everything else is secondary.