John's Bold Call: Change Your Life Today
Daily Scripture
Matthew 3:1-12
1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the desert of Judea announcing, 2 “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!” 3 He was the one of whom Isaiah the prophet spoke when he said:
The voice of one shouting in the wilderness,
“Prepare the way for the Lord;
make his paths straight” [Isaiah 40:3].
4 John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey.
5 People from Jerusalem, throughout Judea, and all around the Jordan River came to him. 6 As they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. 7 Many Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized by John. He said to them, “You children of snakes! Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon? 8 Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives. 9 And don’t even think about saying to yourselves, Abraham is our father. I tell you that God is able to raise up Abraham’s children from these stones. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down and tossed into the fire. 11 I baptize with water those of you who have changed your hearts and lives. The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am. I’m not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 The shovel he uses to sift the wheat from the husks is in his hands. He will clean out his threshing area and bring the wheat into his barn. But he will burn the husks with a fire that can’t be put out.”
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Nearly four hundred years had passed with no clear prophetic voice in Israel. Many Israelites were spiritually hungry. When John the Baptizer (or Baptist) began preaching, forcefully and urgently calling people to change their lives, he drew crowds hungry for a word from God. He baptized people as a symbol of cleansing and change. He warned those crowds that claiming to be Abraham’s descendants was worthless if their lives dishonored Abraham’s spiritual legacy.
- Before John, Israelites baptized Gentile converts, but did not see any need to accept baptism for themselves. “John’s call for a one-time baptism for those who had been born as Jews was unprecedented. He insisted that one’s ancestry was not adequate to guarantee one’s relationship with God.” * Have you ever hoped that a family faith tradition, or a denominational identity, would be enough to secure your standing with God? What makes personal baptism important?
- John the Baptist’s mission was to lead people to answer God’s call to change their hearts and lives and show it through baptism (verse 6). But, jailed by Herod Antipas for criticizing his illicit marriage, John was puzzled (cf. Matthew 11:2-3) and “concerned that [Jesus’ deeds] differed from John’s message of end-time outpourings of the Spirit and fire.” ** Do you, like John, ever wish Jesus had just zapped bad people instead of modeling self-giving love as God’s way of defeating evil?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, as St. Francis is said to have prayed, make me an instrument of your peace. In 2025, let me spread your love, kindness and healing wherever I go. Amen.
GPS Insights
Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Leawood's modern worship services, as well as at the West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
In faith, we deal with a lot of I-can’t-waits: I can’t wait until I no longer struggle with doubt; I can’t wait until I don’t feel like I’m failing; I can’t wait until this grief and sadness are done and I can simply be happy. There are days we feel like we are done, but there are days, many more than we’re comfortable with, that remind us that we’re not done.
My favorite Existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (because don’t we all have a favorite Existentialist philosopher?), wrote in his book Concluding Unscientific Postscript:
“Suppose a man was assigned the task of entertaining himself for an entire day, and he finishes this task of self-entertainment as early as noon: then his celerity would not be meritorious. So also when life constitutes the task. To be finished with life before life has finished with one is precisely not to have finished the task.”
I’m writing this post more for myself than anyone. Due to mental illness, my mind is constantly racing from one thing to the next—I hyperfocus on something until my brain can’t stand it anymore, and then I move on to another project. That’s how, in the past 10 years, I’ve had a movie review website, a podcast, a tabletop gaming website, and a side gig as an editor for a publication in the web industry. My brain is used to being done with things.
Also, due to mental illness, there are days I know I’m not done: I’m depressed, anxious, or exhausted. Many of these days, I feel like I haven’t even really started. The pride fades into shame, and the ambition fades into regret. Stability and normalcy seem an insurmountable task.
John the Baptist baptized people to remind them that they were not done with their faith just because they were born into it. That’s not the only reason for complacency—people in Jesus’ time dealt with the same philosophical issues we do today—but it was the first big step that many needed to think of faith and growth as a journey rather than a status. We can’t be finished with life before life is finished. That’s a reminder we all need in our comfortable times because discipline will bring comfort in the uncomfortable times.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* D. S. Dockery, article “Baptism” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL., InterVarsity Press, 1992, p. 58.
** NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (pp. 8429-8430). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
