Monday, June 12, 2023

       ^1-2 In due course John the Baptist arrived, preaching in the Judean desert: “You must change your hearts—for the kingdom of Heaven has arrived!” ³ This was the man whom the prophet Isaiah spoke about in the words: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’.  ^4-6 John wore clothes of camel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and lived on locusts and wild honey. The people of Jerusalem and of all Judea and the Jordan district flocked to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, publicly confessing their sins.

           ^7-9 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said: “Who warned you, you serpent’s brood, to escape from the wrath to come? Go and do something to show that your hearts are really changed. Don’t suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We are Abraham’s children’, for I tell you that God could produce children of Abraham out of these stones! ¹⁰ “The axe already lies at the root of the tree, and the tree that fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 

       Motivation.  Heart.  From time to time, something new and exciting will pop up within a church.  People say: “God is really moving there.”  So, before long there will be a migration of good church-folks from their churches to see and experience what’s happening there.  It always amazes me that people will drive 25 minutes to see and experience the latest and greatest rather than spend 25 extra minutes in prayer and scripture.  It saddens me that people will spend 25 minutes driving but won’t spend 25 minutes serving to make the church they belong to better.

       Pharisees and Sadducees, good church-folks, heard about John and went to take the plunge.  Not because their hearts were touched and they felt a sincere need to repent (Change), but because John was the latest and greatest.  And John, to his credit, called them out.  You snakes in the grass, who told you about this.  You think it’s a freak show, but it’s God’s judgment and it’s already started (the axe is laid to the tree).  Wow!

       Today, I will determine to seek God through the spiritual life, not through the latest fad and craze.  Today, I will see God through repentance (change), not by following the latest superstar preacher or mega-church model.  O God, by Your grace and with Your strength, I will.  Amen!