I really struggled this week to work out what I was to say this morning. I really wanted to talk about a particular subject, but the bit of the Bible that we are looking at this morning didn’t seem to say much about it.
Let me explain. Last week, Marg spoke about one of the ways that God works in our lives, with us. We explored the idea that God refines us. She shared with us the story of the lady who went to see a silver smith to find out how silver is refined, and discovered that the silver worker has to stay and watch the silver as it is refined, and that the refiner knows when the silver is ready because she can see her reflection in the silver. And so, we know when it feels like we are going through fire that God is not absent, but is there, with us, closely attentive, and we know that we are being made more able to bear God’s image.
During the week, Keith Harding shared with me that he felt that God was saying that God refines, revives and renews. And so, with Marg having helped us to think about God’s refining last week, I thought that this week we might look at God’s reviving, and then, next week, look at God’s renewing.
But, then I looked at the Gospel for this week, the story we heard this morning of John the Baptist’s teaching to the people in the desert outside Jerusalem. And it didn’t seem to have much to do with God’s reviving. It seemed to have a lot to do with judgement and fire. In some ways, they seemed to be the opposite of reviving, they seemed to be to do with putting to death.
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