SCRIPTURE: Matthew 3
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
(Read my reflection from 2008)
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” [Matthew 3:11-12]
Jesus may be the living expression of God’s love, but He is not soft.
The good news of God’s love includes this message of “Spirit and fire”, and for those who refuse to repent, unquenchable fire.
Sin (rebellion against God, selfishness, cruelty to others) is a serious, serious thing.
The good news confronts the bad news head on, and offers a way out of it.
But that way is repentance, and repentance needs to be deep and sincere.

If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. [Matthew 18:18]
Here again we see the eternal (unquenchable) fire; Jesus refers to it when He talks about the seriousness of sin, and how we need to take it seriously.
The religious leaders that came to John for baptism were just going through the religious motions, pretending to be holy and humble before others.
But John exposes their insincerity – “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. [Matthew 3:7-8]
Stop faking it, start by getting rid of the sin that you are pretending to repent of.
Cut it off, even if it means you cut off your hand!

Why does Jesus speak of cutting off limbs or gouging out eyes?
He is using hyperbole(extreme statements) to make the point that sin is very serious, and we should not minimize or excuse it.
Jesus Christ entered the unquenchable fire so that we would not have to; how then can we continue to sin knowing what He endured for us?
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? [Hebrews 10:26-29]
God hates sin, what it does to us and to others and to Him.

Do we hate it, do we truly repent of it, do we truly desire to change?
Then cut it off, produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
If this is oour genuine desire, He will help us by the Spirit and fire…
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. [1 John 18-10]

PRAYER:
Lord, I know I do not hate my sin enough. Help me to hate it more and more!