Thoughts From Luke - Day 11

                                        Luke 3:15-18

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. ¹⁶ John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” ¹⁸ And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.

   We saw a Baptism at church yesterday. It reminded me that there are two parts to salvation. Number one is the dunking. It reminds us and symbolizes that we are dirty. We are sinful. We deserve the winnowing fork and unquenchable fire because of our rebellion against God. If we for example lie to someone it is bad yet if we lie to a friend it is worse. If I lie to my spouse it can cause greater consequences. If I lie to a judge it is called perjury and if I lie to the king, he could have me executed. Imagine, if the severity of the sin escalates in proportion to the importance of the person, how damning sinning against the king of the whole universe is. Yet God sent His Son, Jesus, to pay for our sins by dying on the cross and shedding His blood for our sins. This is the immersion part of baptism. This is what John the Baptist's message was, repent of your sins.

    If that is all there is it would be like holding that person underwater. It would be like our living room, growing up, where the furniture was so new and clean that no one was allowed to go in it. It was of no use to anyone.Fortunately the pastor said "buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life" as he lifted that person out of the water. Christ's resurrection gave us life. It preceded the sending of the Holy Spirit to give us life. It's like if a person dies of cancer there would be two parts to bringing them back to life. Number 1, remove all the cancer because that's what brought death in the first place, then breathe life back into them. Without the Holy Spirit we are disease-free corpses. If you ask the average person what it means to be "saved" they would quote John 3:16 and say "my sins are forgiven and I'm going to Heaven." Nothing could be truer than that, however, it is incomplete. That person is still underwater and has evolved gills.

     We sing a song in Church, "The Resurrected King is Resurrecting me". What that is saying is that salvation didn't end at the cross. Salvation was completed when Jesus rose from the dead ascended to Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to give us the resurrected life of Christ inside us to bring us to life. His life changes us. We start growing into the image of Christ. We become little Christs demonstrating His life to the world around us.

    Practically speaking, what does this mean? If we are saved but our lives aren't changing - we are still committing the same sins, we are still living self-centered lives, we aren't serving, we have no compassion for the poor, we are storing up our treasures on Earth, we don't desire to meet with God daily in quiet times and weekly in Church - then we probably aren't born again. Life in Christ demands growth, it demands change. Think about it.

     Lord, I hunger and thirst for Your presence. Continue to change me through Your Holy Spirit inside me. Amen.