John the Baptist goes on to say: Don't even think about relying on your ancestral heritage. Your ancestral heritage means nothing to God. You think it important that "Abraham is our father," but past history and your "name" means nothing. It has to be personal. It has to be your life that has changed. It has to be your life that is surrendered. You will be known by what you do or do not do.
God doesn't need you, you need God. Accountability is about to happen. Matthew 3:10 - "The ax is now ready to cut down the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." God is ready to punish those who do not obey Him.
John the Baptist came to prepare the way, to baptize with water to symbolize a changed heart and surrendered life, and to tell about the One who would come after him. Just as John the Baptist was preaching repentance as a way to prepare for Jesus' physical coming, personal and true repentance prepares the way for our acceptance of the sacrifice Jesus made for our salvation.
John baptized with water. Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire Matthew 3:12 - "He will come ready to clean the grain, separating the good grain from the chaff. He will put the good part of the grain into his barn, but he will burn the chaff with a fire that cannot be put out." (Read about the references to chaff in Psalm 1 and Psalm 140.)
Jesus will be the judge. He will decide who is good. He will decide who has become like chaff, who has lost their value, and who is no longer producing good fruits. The good are saved and the bad are punished. Those words are hard to hear, but they are God's words and they are true. Jesus will be the judge.
Jesus asks John the Baptist to baptize him. He, who knew no sin and had no need of confession, humbled himself to be baptized. In the Old Testament the priests were first washed and then anointed. Jesus was making himself one of them. Immediately upon coming up out of the water, the heavens opened and God's Spirit came down on him a like a dove. At the same time a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with him." (Matthew 3:17)
From Jane's (Her Name Was Jane) KJV Bible:
"For the first time the Trinity, foreshadowed in many ways in the Old Testament, is fully manifested. The Spirit descends upon the Son, and at the same moment the Father's voice is heard from heaven."Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Three in One.
I explain the Trinity and the Holy Spirit to my 7th graders using an egg and balloon. Just like an egg has three parts (egg shell, egg white, and egg yolk—but yet are all part of the same egg) so it is with God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Three parts but one GOD. I draw them this picture:
The only way we get to God is through Jesus and the cross. Then Jesus asks God to send the Holy Spirit to us. While we can't "see" the Holy Spirit, He is there. I use a balloon to demonstrate this. When I blow into a balloon you cannot see the air I blow in, but you can see the result—the balloon expands and becomes larger. We cannot see the Holy Spirit, but we can witness the effect He has on our lives. The more air I blow into the balloon the more it expands and the larger it becomes. The more we surrender our lives to God through Jesus, the more God fills us with His Holy Spirit, and the more our lives are changed to become more Christ-like. Just as Jesus chose to be baptized as a symbol of a surrendered life, we should also be baptized as a symbol of our surrendered life. But even more important than a one-time act of baptism, we need to daily surrender our lives to Him.
Addendum: 10/8/15 ~ Because there was a lull in the lawsuit we had not incurred any dreaded lawyer fees for quite some time. But now it is starting back up. Today we got the statement for this months charges from our lawyer. Almost $1,500... and that's just the beginning. I'm guessing we will have at least $15,000 – $20,000 more in charges for just the upcoming Settlement Conference. We've been told that it takes about $100,000 to cover a trial. Oh my goodness. The thought of what we will have to additionally spend to defend ourselves against my sister and brother-in-law's trickery and their totally false accusations is nauseating. Literally. It just seems so ridiculously wrong, wasteful, foolish, and unacceptable that their anger, greed and revenge is causing us to keep going farther in the hole when that same money which could either be spent wisely or saved wisely, is being squandered away.
But then I had a new thought! A paradigm shift in thinking. I am no longer going to view the money we have to spend to defend ourselves as a wasted expense. Instead, I am going to view it as an investment. Let me explain.
Up until now it has always felt like a wasted expense. But then last year around this time, we realized God had something planned for my journals. I wrote about it here:
LORD – What Am I to Do?
The LORD Answers!
I Didn't Know—BUT GOD DID!!
So, now we know that someday my journals and the story of Jane E. Wolfe will be made public. In my journal entry today I explained the steps to salvation—and that's when it hit me. The cost of defending ourselves in this lawsuit is NOT an expense—it is an investment! . An investment in God's Kingdom. An investment in changed hearts and lives. An investment in lives that are eternally saved! THAT is an "expense" I am very willing to pay!! Without the betrayal of loved ones, the scheming to set traps along our path, and false accusation there is no story of God's faithfulness to tell. The money we are spending is not wasted—IT IS AN INVESTMENT!
What a paradigm shift in thinking. From now on, when I have to write the check to our lawyer, it will no longer be with dread and angst. It will instead be with joy for being allowed to be the recipients of a Blessed Event, and it will be with thanksgiving for being given a small role to play in furthering the Kingdom of God.
Maybe. Maybe someday we will learn the story of someone whose life was changed because of reading either:
or
Every exhausted night; every heartache; every disappointment; every dollar that was spent will be worth it ALL!! Thank you, LORD, for showing me (once again) this is not about us, it is ALL about You.
Next Entry: Prepare the Way!!
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