Fire and water!

Luke 3:16 – 37


John’s call was to be the forerunner for Jesus. To cut the path, so that people would be ready to hear what Jesus had to say. He was calling people to repentance.

Our culture has softened the idea of repentance. We talk about being sorry for something. True repentance is doing a 180-degree turnaround. Walking completely away from the wrong thing, never to return again. Those who came and accepted John’s message did just that and when they truly repented they were baptized, a symbolic dying of them selves and a resurrection as a new creation in Christ. Once they have repented, as Paul wrote, it was no longer they that live but Christ in them.

John said, while he baptized in water Jesus would baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire. Water can be used to cleanse the outside, fire completely transforms and individual. When a piece of wood passes though fire it becomes ash, which can easily be used to fertilize the ground and bring good fruit. When gold passes through the fire it is purified. Both things radically change when they pass through the fire. Jesus came to baptize us with fire and then to enable that change to be effective and used properly, opened the door for the Holy Spirit to fill us to overflowing. As long as we carry around the junk from our past, as long as we carry unrepentant sin we will never be changed. Repentance is a choice we make, the Jesus kind of repentance is radical it is life transforming it is allowing God to get rid of all of the stuff and mold us, shape us into His image.
To have a life change! This change brings freedom, a freedom that allows us to be who we are called to be.

Are you filling frustrated and limited today? Do you believe that there is more for you to do? More you want to do but can’t get there from here? Ask the Lord to walk you through his fire, to fill you new with his Holy Spirit. Before you do let me warn you, you will change, it will not be easy but when it is all done you will have a greater peace, love, joy, and power because you have allowed the Lord to shape you into what you have been called to be. You will begin a journey of freedom, it truly will be longer you that live but Christ that lives in you!