The first gift was bought, our tree brought home and decorated only in the last few days. I hold deep admiration for those whose Christmas cards are written and mailed early. As for me, well, they get done in dribs and drabs as time allows. And I sing …
Let every heart, prepare Him room.
Truth be known …. I am not done with the preparations.
To prepare, according to dictionary.com is “to put in proper condition or readiness; to get ready by proper assembling”.
My thoughts remember the voice:
“He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!’ “ (Matthew 3:3, NLT).
Preparation, in this instance, was to clear the way. Preparation takes time, effort and energy. Preparation takes sacrifice.
Zechariah was told about the birth of his son, John the Baptist, by an angel. The angel said, “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous ”“ to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17, NIV).
I sat this morning, reading those words and realized, we cannot prepare ourselves by ourselves.
He comes alongside of us, enabling us to prepare our hearts. It is all by His doing. He makes us ready – prepared – for the Lord. For the day of His coming.
As we continue on in this time of preparation, we will listen to Christmas music, read Scriptures telling of His birth, and do Advent devotional readings. The entire time ….
He Himself is preparing us to prepare for Him.
Seeing as He does all things well, our hearts can rest assured He will prepare us and we will sing, prepared …
“Joy to the World, the Lord has come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.”
Today I am joining … Playdates With God and #SmallWonder and Inspire Me Monday and Sharing His Beauty and #WordsWithWinter .
‘Prepare Him room.’ This is a powerful invitation … and takes some focus to reply in the way that would make Him happiest. I’m taking these 3 words as I go today, Joanne. Thank you for the needed reminder …
I’m far from being prepared for Christmas in terms of presents, decorations, etc. The sad thing is that until I knock more of that out of the way, I tend to delay getting more prepared for Christ’s coming too. 🙁 Still working on prioritizing the most important things first. Thanks for this, Joanne.
Thank you for sharing such wonderful encouragement that He will work in us and through us to be prepared for Him!
I never thought about it that way before, but you are so very right!
I have certainly left your blog feeling very edified. 🙂
I wanted to let you know that I will be featuring this post on my blog this Friday for my Feature Friday post. Please feel free to stop by and grab my button. 🙂
it’s interesting how He planned to have the way prepared for His first coming. by a man named John the Baptist who definitely had nothing fancy by way of externals…either in his looks or message. he was simply calling people to repent. what a simple message!
Prepare Him room. That’s it! Thank you!
You are most welcomed 🙂 May we both be ready Christmas morn!