Get Out of the Way - (Jakes)
T.D. Jakes opens the first of his series, "Get Out of the Way" at http://www.thepottershouse.org/v2/content/view/196/268/. John the Baptist was preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. People followed him, but he was crazy. But nobody follows ordinary. Who rants and raves about ordinary? People follow extraordinary! God will take the ordinary to the extraordinary. John dressed in camel's hair and ate locusts. He was the premier prelate of his day. His ministry was exploding!! And then came Jesus; a face in the crowd who would change everything. John is Baptizing and preaching and he looks up and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world." John is the first one to let us know that this was the man that was to fulfill Old Testament prophesy. Every time the devil comes into our lives and threatens us, we should say "Behold..." to him. The problem with Jesus in the scene is that John is losing members. His disciples point out that he is losing out to Jesus. Instead of reacting negatively to the intrusion, John says, "I must decrease that He might increase." One of the hardest things that egos have to handle is the fact that this (pointing to the Bible) is not about us! God has a way of stirring things up to make changes. These are changes that cause us to question our beliefs. But we have to be "steadfast, unmovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord." But that's hard to do. It's hard to be steadfast when all hell is breaking lose. When things get tough, always go back to the beginning. If God started it, he will finish it. He is the Alpha and Omega. "He that began a good work in you shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Cast all your cares on Him. He is a God of transition. We may not know how to react or where to go but all we need is Him. To the novice, one would not have known that the presence of Jesus was the first encounter. But John's parents, Elisabeth & Zacharias, were old when his mother became pregnant with John. However, because the baby was motionless in the womb, Elisabeth was sure that she was carrying a dead child. She stayed in her home for six months as a precaution. Meanwhile, an angel appeared before Mary, the mother of Jesus, telling her she was to give birth to a Savior. She immediately ran to Elisabeth's house because she knew that she had had the same experience. Mary goes into the house thinking she was going to talk woman to woman, not knowing it was going to be baby to baby. God has predestined a set up in our lives. What we think we are meeting about is not what we are actually going to experience. The Bible says that, all of the sudden, the baby John leapt in her womb. Mary was carrying the Resurrection and the Light. It was a work that God had started in Elisabeth where God would be glorified by the presence of Jesus Christ.
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