Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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April 1, 2010
    Whew!  Good morning.  Lots happening.  Too much.
    Besides this being "April Fools Day," it is also the 13th anniversary of my triple bypass surgery.  What a memory!  It hardly seems real.  But I have the "zipper" chest to serve as an undeniable memory.  I certainly wish to do everything I reasonably can to bypass another bypass.
    Well...ready or not, here I come...into the fray of the day.  I just purpose to do so in partnership with my Sovereign.  Becki was expounding to me earlier on her Bible reading this morning...part of which was Psalm 91.  Now there's a good premise for the day.
    Be blessed...dwelling in the secret place of the Most High.
        Love, Dad/Ray

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1 April 2010
Passage: Mark 1:1-20
Focus: “—a voice of one calling in the desert. ‘Prepare the way for the Lord…’”  Mark 1:3.

            This is a quote from Isaiah 40:3.  The King James Version translates it “crying in the wilderness.”  It is clearly a prophetic word describing the life and ministry of “John the Baptist.”
            The world system around us can very well be likened to a dry desert of spiritual barrenness—a wilderness of the true knowledge of God.  The ministry of “John the Baptist” is just as needed today as it was then.  We need to hear more crying out in this wilderness and calling for people to repent and seek God—to forsake sin and prepare their hearts for compliance with His will.
            What about you?  (…including me.)  Do you have any desire to be God’s crier?  Have you done all you can to “prepare the way for the Lord” in your own life?—your own wilderness?  To make it all work right we desperately need to be a caller TO God before we can be a caller FOR God.  Perhaps we could extend the analogy one step further and say we are either callers or deserts—either criers for God or a part of the wilderness of unfruitfulness and need—a missionary or a mission field.