Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

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 Our Point is to Point to Him

St. Mark 1:1-11
 

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

    who will prepare your way,

3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:

    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

    make his paths straight,
 

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Luke 1:41). After reading the scripture portion in Mark for today’s devotion, I immediately thought of this verse from Luke - the joyful exchange between Mary, the mother of our Lord, and Elizabeth, the mother of John. How beautifully connected Scripture is - that the same boy who leaped in his mother’s womb when Mary, with the baby Jesus in her womb, came near, is the same man who prepared the way for the Son of Man, for the Messiah, for the One who is mightier than John himself. 

John recognized his purpose. It was not about how many people he would baptize. It was not about how loved he was by the people of Jerusalem and Judea. It was definitely not about how he looked to others. The point of everything He did was to point to Christ, He knew that he was nothing compared to the One who was coming. This distinction between John and Jesus is further exemplified as John mentioned the shortcoming of the baptism that he can provide - that it could only bring those who partook in it to repentance. However, the baptism that Jesus can provide - through the Holy Spirit - has the power to move beyond repentance to actually transform hearts and cleanse people from their sins. 

Jesus was sinless and yet chose to be baptized, as we see in this passage, and soon thereafter, crucified by His own creation. And why did He do these things? Not because He needed to.  It was because He loved us so much that He chose to identify with us and to save us from our own sin and destruction.  Praise be to our Savior, who stepped out of all the riches of heaven and humbled Himself to the form of a human because of His great love for us. This truth should change how we live! I pray that you take some time today to thank Him for who He is and what He did. Remember our entire purpose, like John’s, is to point to Christ in all that we do. 

 

Prayer
Dear Father, we praise you for who You are. Thank you for coming to this Earth to save us from our sin. Thank you for taking our place on that cross and dying a death that we deserved. Lord, I pray that we would radiate You today - through the words we speak, through the way we interact with others, through the way we live. In all that we do, would we point to you, just like John did. We love you, we worship you. Let all that we do glorify and honor You. In your precious and beautiful name, we pray. Amen.

Thought for the Day

The point of all that we do is to point to Christ. 

Elisa Andrews
Mar Thoma Church of Dallas, Farmers Branch, TX

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