God’s Incinerator
Matthew 3:11,12 I baptise you with water to show that you have changed your hearts and lives. But there is someone coming later who is able to do more than I can. I am not good enough to be the slave who takes off his sandals. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He will come ready to clean the grain. He will separate the good grain from the straw, and he will put the good part into his barn. Then he will burn the useless part with a fire that cannot be stopped.”
We know that the bad stuff that we have going on inside us from time to time, tends to ruin our lives. We know that. But letting go of that stuff, well, that’s not always that easy now, is it?
It’s one of those basic facts of life, that if our bodies don’t dispose of the waste they produce, then we’re going to get very sick, very quickly. The waste produces toxins that will eventually kill us. That’s why our bodies have been designed to remove the waste on a daily basis. We get that, right?
And the same is true of our soul. If we’re carrying rubbish around in our mind, our will or our emotions, it’s going to make us sick. So one of the reasons that God gives His Spirit – the Holy Spirit – to each person who puts their faith in Jesus is to get rid of the rubbish – to burn it up. John the Baptist put it like this:
Matthew 3:11,12 I baptise you with water to show that you have changed your hearts and lives. But there is someone coming later who is able to do more than I can. I am not good enough to be the slave who takes off his sandals. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He will come ready to clean the grain. He will separate the good grain from the straw, and he will put the good part into his barn. Then he will burn the useless part with a fire that cannot be stopped.”
That’s not always that comfortable. Mostly, we just want to hang onto the rubbish in our souls, even though it’s killing us. But Jesus wants to remove the waste from our system. He wants to make us holy.
Are you ready? Holy Spirit and fire.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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Deana
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