The next day, John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29
If I were to ask you what is so special about today, you might have to dig deep to come up with something. It’s no longer New Year’s Day, and there won’t be anything more to celebrate (unless you or somebody close to you has a birthday) until the Easter season. Today is time to get back to work for many folks, a back-to-the-grind day after all the fun times of the past holiday season. It’s hard to get excited about a day like today, isn’t it? And yet, John Baptist took a day just like today, a day called ‘the next day’ and turned it into a wonderful opportunity to point out to people the Lord Jesus, and to proclaim Him as the One Who can save them from their sins. Let us take a cue from John today, and use every ‘next day’ of this year to point sinners to the Lord Jesus.
If we consider this term, ‘the next day’, we can see that there are 365 of them remaining this year, counting today This being a leap year gives us an extra day – an extra opportunity to introduce people to our Saviour. God has flooded us with opportunities. Notice that John didn’t waste his opportunity. When the next day came, He was ready, and he quickly pointed out the Lord Jesus to everybody around him. In fact, if we read on, we discover that John repeated his message on the very next day. On that occasion, he had the joy of seeing two men become permanent followers of the Lord Jesus. We won’t always have results like that, in fact, we may not see anybody saved as a result of our daily pointing out the Lord Jesus to others. But if we don’t point out the Lord Jesus, it’s for certain we won’t see anybody saved.
So how do we point out the Lord Jesus to others? First of all, we need to know about Him, so we can tell others about Him. That means we need to be reading His Word as much as possible, so we will know Him better. We also need to be talking to Him on a regular basis, so we will remain in close communion with His will. We also need to live as much as possible in conformity with Him, so that people will be interested in hearing about a Saviour Who has made such a positive impression on us. Next, we need to remain alert for opportunities to tell others about Him. Some of us find it more difficult than others to witness for Him, but we can all faithfully show those around us what a Christian should look like. And we should all do everything we can to support those who preach the Gospel and who do visiting and tract distribution. There are many ways in which we can support the spread of the Gospel, including financial and prayer support.
With so many ‘next days’ this year, we have a wonderful opportunity every day, starting today, to point out the Lord Jesus to those around us. -Jim MacIntosh