“And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” –Luke 1:17
A prepared heart is essential to the plan of salvation. Repentance is as needful as sanctification and sanctification as repentance. Repentance is turning away from sin, clearing out the old, and getting ready for the new. If one wishes to be in complete fellowship with God, the Father; he must accept and be accepted by God the Son.
The meaning of Christmas is the birth of Christ. The coming of our Savior into this world to bring hope through salvation to all mankind. He is the main character and John the Baptist is part of the supporting cast. John’s role was to prepare he was born before, he went before, and he preached to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. God wants each one of us to have a spiritual Christmas within our hearts. The gospel of Luke (as well as other places in the Bible) tells us that John the Baptist was to go before Jesus. He was to be the forerunner, preaching the gospel of repentance, witnessing to the Christ which was to come. As the servants would prepare the road for the coming of the king, John prepared the way for the coming of the Savior. John was sent preaching a gospel of preparation, not one of total salvation. He continuously pointed to another, one who would come after himself, one that would be greater than he and bring the gospel of full deliverance from sin. John came first and Jesus Christ who six months later was born to a virgin, came to be the Savior of the world. John is first into this world, and Christ is after. Repentance to prepare the heart for the coming of the Holy Spirit to sanctify it. Before Jesus can come, we first need to be prepared. We need to repent, turn away, ask God for forgiveness, and determine to never go back to our sinning ways. God will forgive and forget, but we don’t stop there because He did not stop there. There is full deliverance that is offered and a spiritual coming of Christ into your heart that needs to be requested and welcomed by faith. You are not saved at forgiveness, you are prepared for the coming of the Savior. The coming is not physical but spiritual; the spirit of the Holy Christ (the Comforter) is the born-again experience in you, and you thereby are reborn, sanctified, and made holy. It is by faith and in faith, just as the birth of our Savior was by faith and in faith, the faith of Mary, the faith of Joseph. With God, the impossible is possible.
When Jesus comes into your heart, he saves you totally and completely from all sin and pulls you out of the darkness into light; that’s what he came into this world to do, to save us from our sins. You can have a spiritual Christmas.
