by Pastor Bob Lawrenz
Everyone has those “DUH” moments once in a while. We live our lives daily, and then suddenly, a light goes on somewhere in our brains and we think, “There’s something I have to do…”
I think it was one of those moments for the Pharisees that Jesus was speaking of in our Gospel reading today in Matthew 3:7. The scriptures they knew so well began to speak to their hearts as they saw The Baptist’s ministry fulfilling God’s Word. Isaiah 40:3 records, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” This same caliber of men, some 30 years prior, knew where the new King of Israel was to be born. Though well versed in the scriptures, they all failed to make the spiritual application of the Word to their hearts and lives, or to their congregations!
It should not come as a surprise that towards the end of His ministry, Jesus referred to these Temple Leaders as a “generation of vipers,” and “white washed sepulchers.” So intent were they upon the Messiah they wanted, that when God sent the Messiah that they needed, they rejected Him. Inside them, there were dead men’s bones; unregenerate, lifeless, and without the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God resides within the heart of every Believer to catch us in our wrong thinking, and remind us of what Jesus said, and the decisions we should be making: God’s way, or my own?
The Spirit will bring to our minds other scriptures to support God’s best desire for us, and for the other choice, we have to justify ourselves without the benefit of God’s Word.
The humble heart will always be teachable, and able to acknowledge wrong, and make necessary changes to find God’s best desire for him or herself, knowing full well that God’s mercies are new every morning.
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” ~Isaiah 40:3
