Changing Seasons

At this moment, I’m sitting at my desk, awaiting the solar eclipse and thinking about the change in seasons. Autumn does not officially start until September 22; still, it feels like fall. Later today, Cheryl and I will travel with our youngest to Pittsburgh, where she will begin her studies in biology at Pitt. Yesterday, we celebrated our son’s twenty-first birthday, and in November, our eldest son gets married. For Cheryl and me, it feels like the season is changing now.
Today, in my daily reading from the Bible, I found myself in Luke 3. In this passage, we see the changing of a season. During the intertestamental period (between the Old and New Testaments), the Jews believed that God no longer spoke directly to them, there are no prophets after Malachi. In other words, there was a season of silence on God’s behalf. Now, in the New Testament, John the Baptist delivers a powerful message from God to the people. We read in Luke 3:3, “Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.” The seasons were changing. God was going to show humankind His great mercy and grace. Amazingly, God still speaks that message today!
John makes this appeal to the crowd of people, “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God” (Luke 3:8). In other versions, the same passage is translated, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” Is there a better indicator than fruit to demonstrate the changing season?
What sort of fruit is evident in your life? No matter what season of life we find ourselves, I think we ought to be continually asking that question. What is the tangible result of following Jesus in your life? Through this passage, I hear God whispering to me, “Don’t waste this season.” How can I produce results in my life that reflect God working on me? Those present in the crowd to whom John the Baptist spoke asked Him “what shall we do?” (see Luke 3:10, 12, 14). Can we ask God along with the crowd “what shall we do?” For me, I want to embrace this season of change. I’m going to ride it for all its worth so that I can arrive exactly where God wants me.

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