Are you now humming or singing that song?  Now, that I have your attention, it is wildly monumental when we are born with knowledge of God’s purpose and mission for each of us.  It is extremely colossal when our purpose has been written centuries before by God’s prophet.  So, it is with John, the wild and wooly preacher of the wilderness!  “Repent”, shouts John to those around him who are curious of the man in animal skins. 

Humanity’s curiosity leads them to hearing the Truth of what John is crying out to the world around him.  “The Lord is coming!”, John declares, “and sins need to be confessed”.  Leave your selfish, mundane lives of mere survival without God and TURN back to God!  The people have heard only what they owe from the religious elite of their day who have forgotten God.  John’s message is plain because his mission is clear; Our Messiah, the One we have all been longing for is on His way.  He will come and save us forever.  He is God’s Son who knows and judges the motivation of all hearts.  Wake up!  Get ready!

Then Jesus comes!  How wildly awesome to see Who you are speaking of with passion and love, walk right into your message!  God shows up in the form of His Son, Jesus to all people as a testimony of His great love for His created.  John fulfilled his purpose when he baptized Jesus.  Jesus fulfilled God’s righteous, perfect example before the people by being baptized that day. The Way back to God has come to complete the work God began in John.  Believe, repent and be saved. 

Later John will humbly say, “He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” (John 3:30) Yes, John was born to be wild.  He wildly and unreservedly loved God, knew God and served God.  He was wildly full of God’s Spirit and knew exactly what God wanted him to do and he did it.  But John also knew he was not the Messiah, the Redeemer, of all sin.  Only Jesus, God’s Son, could do and be that Person. 

Jesus later said of John, “I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is!”  (Matthew 11:11) 

POINTS TO PONDER

Are we born to be wild?  Are we wildly persistent in knowing God, hearing His voice above all others, longing to learn from Him along with determination to obey Him no matter what the world says we should be and do? 

Where do we begin to be wildly different from the world?

Believe, repent asking for forgiveness of Jesus and in Jesus Name.  Be baptized as a public announcement of our new life with Jesus in charge.  Then allow God’s Holy Spirit to begin teaching us.  Our minds will begin to change our attitudes and behaviors.  Our hearts will love greater than we have ever loved before.  Our souls will be filled with inexplicable joy and peace that surpasses what is going on around us. 

God requires us to Love Him first; then with His Love in us, Love others like He Loves us.

God requires self to get out of the way so we can become more and more in every way like his Son, our perfect example and standard for wildly abundant love-filled living.  Jesus came to save us AND he also taught us how to live.  The Gospels will teach us these ways clearly. (See also Micah 6:8 and Philippians 2)

Let us then prepare our hearts, minds and souls for The Way to return and claim us as His own.  Jesus IS coming back, you know!  “The Lord is coming!” should be our cry of our hearts to the world!

Isn’t that wild?!

Matthew—The Law Fulfilled

Matthew 3, NLT

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, ² “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” ³ The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said,

“He is a voice shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!
    Clear the road for him!’”

⁴ John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁵ People from Jerusalem and from all of Judea and all over the Jordan Valley went out to see and hear John. ⁶ And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.

⁷ But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them. “You brood of snakes!” he exclaimed. “Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? ⁸ Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. ⁹ Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. ¹⁰ Even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹ “I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹² He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.”

The Baptism of Jesus

¹³ Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. ¹⁴ But John tried to talk him out of it. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,” he said, “so why are you coming to me?”

¹⁵ But Jesus said, “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.” So John agreed to baptize him.

¹⁶ After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

TRUTH:  John was born for God’s purpose.  John obeyed God by preparing the Way of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who came with His own mission; to seek and to save the lost.  We are the lost that He came to save.  Find and follow Jesus.  The Only Way to God.

Abba, Father in Heaven,

Thank you, Jesus for saving us, forgiving us all our sin because of your love for us.  Thank for Your Holy Spirit that encourages, convicts, and challenges us to be more like you all while comforting us when we need it.  Thank you for specific purpose for us—to walk humbly with you, loving you, loving others while seeking all that is right and just in your thinking.  Continue to change my mind to your way of thinking so my behavior will be more like you.  Thank you, Lord for caring for us like you do.  Teach us more!

In Jesus Name, Amen