He was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Luke 1:15 says that John was filled with “the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.” And Luke 1:66 says that the Lord’s hand was with him, that’s another way of saying that he was filled with the Spirit. Now this is important. It is easy as when we do character studies of people in the Bible to look at the good things they did and look at the bad things they did then say “okay, I don’t want to do the bad things and I want to do the good things. The result is something called moralizing. Anyone can moralize scripture; you don’t even need to be a Christian to moralize scripture. One of the great errors of Bible teachers is to say “don’t do the bad things, do the good things.” The way that John the Baptist was able to become the greatest man ever to live in human history wasn’t my moralizing, but by the power of the Holy Spirit in his life. The thing here isn’t to do what John did, but to be filled with the Spirit like John was. Through faith in Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you enabling you to live under the guidance and power of the Spirit. Otherwise it is just a list of do’s and don’ts. If you do well you’re proud of yourself if you don’t do well you are unhappy with yourself and become depressed. John was filled with the Holy Spirit, that’s how he did it. There is no secret. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. God’s power enables us to be who we cannot be and do what we cannot do because it’s God power.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for part 3 of the Seven Aspects of John’s Greatness.
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