Bear Fruits In Keeping With Repentance

I decided that I would try to write a blog post a day about my daily Bible reading. It isn't going to be anything fancy or complex, it's just going to be something that jumped out at me that day. I might not get to write one everyday, but I hope that I will be able to come close to that goal. 

Luke Chapter 3 is where I found myself this morning, and as I was reading I came across the familiar words about John the Baptist.

    As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
    “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
        make his paths straight.
    Every valley shall be filled,
        and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
    and the crooked shall become straight,
        and the rough places shall become level ways,
    and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
(Luke 3:4-6 ESV)

So John had a purpose. He had a mission. He was sent to do something that wasn't easy. He was sent to prepare the way for our Lord. He was sent to make the paths straight; to level out the way. John was supposed to get hearts ready for Jesus. John was supposed to proclaim Jesus to people so that they would be ready for His coming. 

Now this is a pretty noble calling, right? I mean, the greatest mission must be getting people ready to "see the salvation of God." But let me ask, do we have any other missions? Do we have any greater purpose then to get people to see the salvation only found in Christ? What is our purpose if it's not to see lost souls come to Christ?

Now what we see next is what really interests me. How John does his proclaiming and his preaching seems strange to me. Look at what he says to all the devout Jews listening to him:

     He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
(Luke 3:7-9 ESV)

 When was the last time you called a bunch of people a brood of vipers? For me this is a pretty rare occurrence. I don't usually tell people that they are a bunch of snakes. It doesn't tend to go over well. But what's really interesting about this is that these are the religious people. These are the people who say, "I don't have to worry because I am a child of Abraham." In essence they, are saying that they'll be just fine because they have a good background. Maybe what we would hear nowadays is something like this, "I'll be fine because I go to church on Sunday." Or "I'm going to Heaven because I'm basically a good person and I do some good deeds." But John says that God would have better children from the rocks than these people.

The question that it all boils down to is this: How's your fruit? Are you bearing fruit in keeping with repentance? Are you bearing good fruit for Christ? Is your fruit good, bad, or just not there at all? Is the axe already at the root for you?

Are you bearing much fruit?