Zucchini Boats 😋 John the baptizer...

Mark 1: 4

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

    

John was announcing that repentance is the way people come to God, and the result is the forgiveness of sins.

And this was the message that the people who had come out of Jerusalem to listen to John found… they found forgiveness of sin, comes by way of repentance…

This is why the prophet Isaiah spoke of John’s message in Isaiah 40: 3-4:

³A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

It’s like the Lord is describing the building of a highway in the desert for God to reach those who are lost and unable to find their way back.

With a road, one can follow it and find their way… they can reach their desired destination…

And the opposite is true also, with a road one can drive out into the desert and find the one who needs help. 

We all know how roads are built, and this describes perfectly how we make modern roads… they blast through the mountains and build up the low areas to make the road as straight and smooth as possible…

Listen again how Isaiah describes it perfectly in verse 4:

"Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain".

That is a picture of what repentance does. It brings down all the high mountain tops of pride that we stand on and refuse to admit are wrong.

It takes the low and depressed areas of our life, where we beat ourselves up and punish ourselves with guilt, and lifts them up.

It takes the rough and rugged places… the crooked places, where we have lied and deceived, and straightens them out and makes them plain.

You see, its only when people acknowledge their guilt and repent… that God meets them, cleanses them, and forgives them.

Then God is there at that instance of repentance.

And John instructed this through the baptism that he performed…

Yet, there is a greater baptism—that of the Holy Spirit. And on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came, Peter stood up and offered the people two things: forgiveness of sins and the promise of the Spirit.

From that time on, God has made these available to any man… and any woman who will begin at the beginning... the place of repentance.

Repentance simply means changing your mind… to stop defending yourself and to stop blaming things on others.

God will meet you where He meets all people… at the point of acknowledging that no one else is to blame… that we need God’s forgiveness.  

That is where God will meet you. 

He always meets humans at that point, washing away guilt, cleansing, and forgiving.