Hearing Jesus: Daily Bible Study and Christian Affirmations

I had a grape recently that was so good I dug through the flesh to save the seeds. Then on a walk down our road I tried some wild grapes growing by the side, and I spit them straight out. Same size. Same color. Vines that looked almost identical.

That's the difference John is pressing on in Luke 3. He calls a crowd that walked miles into the desert a brood of vipers, and then tells them to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Today we're looking at what good fruit actually is, and why John switched metaphors from snakes to trees on purpose.

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What does "brood of vipers" actually mean?

It literally means offspring of vipers, and in that region they would have pictured a very poisonous snake like the echidna.

In Matthew, this line is aimed at the Sadducees and Pharisees. In Luke, John says it to the crowds. That matters, because these were people who had walked miles into the desert to be baptized. Some religious leaders were there, but so were ordinary people. Luke shows John addressing the whole mixed audience at once, because he doesn't want anyone in that group feeling like the scolding was for somebody else.

And he's attacking something specific. Their confidence rested on bloodline. Don't begin to say to yourselves that you have Abraham as your father. By claiming that, they were saying they were inside the covenant and not like the pagans or the Gentiles. John pushes back on the whole family identity argument. You want to talk about your father? Look at your family resemblance. You don't look like Abraham's children, because Abraham's children didn't act like this. You look like snakes.

Jesus uses the same approach later in John 8 when He tells the religious leaders they are of their father, the devil.

This is a long thread in Scripture. The first time we meet a serpent is in the garden. So when John says brood of vipers, he's linking their sin all the way back to original sin.

Why does he ask who warned them to flee?

Because they were an agrarian society, and they knew exactly what that picture meant. When farmers burned off a field, the snakes would come pouring out ahead of the flames, running for safety.

Read it again. You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. He's watching a crowd stream out into the desert to get in the water, and he's describing them as snakes scrambling out of a burning field.

That fire imagery is everywhere in this passage. Two verses later he's talking about the axe at the root of the tree. By verse 17 it's the chaff burning.

So there's an edge to his question. He isn't impressed that they showed up. He's asking whether they came to be changed or just to escape. Sometimes people call it fire insurance. Getting saved because you want out of the consequences, not because you want a relationship with God. Those aren't the same thing.

Snakes running from a fire aren't repenting. They're relocating. They'll be the same snakes in a different field later.

Why does he switch from snakes to trees?

Because snakes don't produce fruit. They just produce more snakes.

That's the point. Think about the snakes in your life. Are they producing fruit? No. They produce more chaos and more snakes. So John switches metaphors to point people in a different direction, and then he gets specific. Share your coat. Share your food. Stop overcharging. Stop extorting people. Stop accusing people falsely.

Notice what every one of those has in common. They're all about how you treat other people, and three of them involve money. In Luke 3, good fruit is measured by what it does for your neighbor and whether you stopped using your position to take advantage of people.

That's the contrast with the vipers. The problem with a snake is what it does to the people around it. It poisons them. Fruit does the opposite. Fruit feeds people.

What does "worthy of repentance" mean?

The Greek word is axios, and it has to do with weighing and balancing scales. Some translations say in keeping with repentance, others say worthy of repentance. Worthy is a little more accurate, because the idea is balance.

The word for repentance is metanoia, from meta, meaning big change, and nous, meaning mind. A changed mind. Turn around and walk the other direction.

So John is saying we're called to produce a life that weighs the same as the turn we claim to have made. If your mind really changed, something visible should balance out on the scale of your life.

Isn't this harsh?

John is intense, yes. But biblical prophets often used shocking language because comfortable language wasn't getting through.

You may have heard the phrase tickling their ears. A lot of preaching comforts people instead of challenging them. That's not what people operating in the prophetic do. When you're talking to people claiming family legacy as their right to the kingdom, you have to make them face themselves and look at the fruit they're actually producing.

What makes fruit good fruit?

There's something in the Greek here worth catching. In verse nine the word for good is kalos. There's another word, agathos, which means morally good or useful. But kalos carries the sense of fine quality, beautiful, the kind of fruit you'd actually want to eat. The kind you'd save the seeds from.

A tree can produce something that still isn't good fruit. Have you ever had a crab apple? Tiny, sour, and you'll get sick eating a handful. We have an old pear tree out back and every pear on it is small and wormy and useless. It's technically fruit. It's still useless.

This calls back to Isaiah 5, where God describes planting a vineyard. He clears the stones, plants the best vines, builds a tower and a winepress. He expected good grapes and it produced worthless ones. The Hebrew word there means stinking or rotten, like the ones I spit out. Then God asks what more He could have done for His vineyard.

That vineyard wasn't barren. It grew grapes. They just weren't the grapes He planted it for.

That's exactly what John is confronting. They had some fruit. It wasn't good fruit.

Is fruit the cause or the evidence?

The evidence. You can't staple good fruit onto a dead tree. Fruit grows out of whatever the root is drawing from.

So John isn't saying produce better behavior and you'll be fine. He's saying the fruit reveals what's happening at the root. The fruit doesn't make the tree. It shows you what the tree is.

Those grapes on my road tasted bad because nobody had ever tended those plants. They're wild, doing their own thing. The ones I wanted to save the seeds from came from vines that had been cultivated with intention.

A lot of us have fruit. We go to church, we listen to podcasts, we know what the Bible says, we might even post the verse. And what's coming out of us is still gross fruit.

That crowd had activity. Walking into the desert and getting in that river took real effort. John looked at all of it and said it doesn't count. Show me something that weighs as much as what you say happened to you.

Timestamps

Frequently asked questions

What does axios mean?

What's the difference between kalos and agathos?

What's coming next?

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Tuesday Daily Affirmations: I Can Do All Things Through Christ

Step into your week with boldness,

I'll read each phrase, you repeat it, and then I'll tell you the Scripture it comes from.

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Before we begin

Today's affirmations are for

Tuesday affirmations and Scripture

I am strong and courageous in

I do not fear because God is with

I can do all things through Christ

I am victorious through Jesus. 1

I have the power of God working

I will not be shaken because God

I walk by faith, not by sight. 2

No weapon formed against me shall

God fights my battles and I need

I am not afraid because God has

I have authority in Christ over

I am rooted and established in

I have divine wisdom and strength

I am resilient and I will

I am filled with the power of the

I will not grow weary in doing

God's grace is sufficient for me. 2

I have peace that surpasses

I am never alone. God is always

I am protected under the shadow of

God's Word is a lamp to my feet

I stand firm in faith and do not

I am free from fear because God's

I have a spirit of power, love,

God is working all things for my

Closing prayer

Lord, I surrender my fear to You. Fill me with boldness,

Listen daily and start your morning with God's truth so

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Most of us carry questions we've never said out loud. Does God see me in this. Did I hear Him wrong. Is something different about me?

In Luke 3, the people were wondering in their hearts about John, and Luke tells us John answered them. Nobody asked anything out loud. Today we're talking about what prophecy actually is, how to tell a real word from a counterfeit, and what it means that God answers what we never say.

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What does prophecy actually mean?

Most of us hear prophecy and think of foretelling. That's a piece of it, but a small one. In Scripture, most prophecy is reminding people of what God has already said.

The Hebrew word is navi, meaning spokesman. We see it in Exodus 7, where God tells Moses that Aaron will be his prophet, meaning Aaron will say out loud what Moses gives him. The Greek word is prophetes, from pro, meaning forth or on behalf of, and phemi, to speak. A prophet speaks forth words that aren't his own.

I say all the time that God's voice will never contradict God's word. The inverse is also true. Often God's word is God's voice. When the Holy Spirit brings a verse to mind, that's the same thing, and sometimes He asks you to share it.

What did prophets actually do?

They called people back to the covenant. Most Old Testament prophets weren't announcing new information. They reminded Israel of what God said at Sinai and showed them where they had drifted.

They told the truth to powerful people. Nathan confronted David. Elijah confronted Ahab. John confronts Herod Antipas over his marriage, which is what lands him in prison.

I'll be honest about that part. This gift is not always well received. I've lost relationships over it, lost business deals, left organizations because there was hidden sin I didn't want to be part of. I'm not talking about being hurtful. I mean speaking the truth in love. But people don't want to be confronted with their own sin, and neither do systems.

And sometimes prophets acted out their message. Isaiah walked barefoot. Jeremiah wore a yoke. Ezekiel laid on his side for months. Hosea's whole marriage became the sermon. That's the callback to John. The camel hair and the wilderness weren't details that happened because he was an oddball. They were the message.

How do you know if a word is really from God?

The enemy has a counterfeit for everything. People go to tarot readings and psychics because it's often accurate. That knowledge comes from demons, and demons often know true things.

So the test is not accuracy. A prophet from God will lead you to God. Even if a word is true, if it leads you somewhere other than God, it's a false prophet.

Faithfulness to God is the standard. Earlier this year there was a news cycle about a charismatic preacher data farming on Facebook to gather information for his prophetic words. The words were true, because he lifted them off people's profiles. But they led people into pain and chaos, and God is not the author of chaos. He was accurate. Accuracy wasn't the standard.

What do I do if I think I've received a word?

Ask the Lord what to do with it. That's the step I hold as most sacred.

If He gives you a word to share and you don't, you miss what He had for you and the person He was reaching misses it too. But if the word was insight for you to pray, or He wanted you to hold it until the right time, and you blurt it out, you can do real damage.

All of us are capable of this. It's a spiritual gift, but every believer has the Spirit of God in them. Until the Lord tells me I can share, I don't. Sometimes it takes the confirmation of another believer. Sometimes it takes separate time in prayer.

Why is John more than a prophet?

Jesus says in Luke 7 that among those born of women there is no one greater than John. Every prophet before him pointed to a day that was coming. John pointed at a person standing in front of him. He's the only one who got to say, behold, the Lamb of God is here.

That doesn't mean prophecy ended. In Acts, Peter says the Spirit was poured out so sons and daughters will prophesy. Anna called out who Jesus was. Philip had four daughters who prophesied. Paul says believers should desire this gift because it edifies. After Jesus, the shape changes. It becomes the gift that builds up the church.

What is John doing with Isaiah?

Exactly what we described. Reminding people of what God already said.

He quotes Isaiah 40, which opens a section written to comfort people in exile. It begins with comfort, O comfort my people, words first given to a defeated nation far from home, with the promise that God Himself was coming to lead them back.

In the ancient world, when a king announced a visit, crews went ahead to prepare the road. They filled washed-out ditches, cut back brush, cleared rocks, straightened switchbacks. A royal visit required a royal highway. Everyone listening understood that image.

But this road isn't made of dirt. Verse three already told us what the construction work is: a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is the road work. The highway runs straight through their hearts. The King is coming, and not to the vicinity. Through your heart.

Every ravine filled means the low places lifted, which meant something to people buried under Roman oppression. Every mountain brought low means pride, self-sufficiency, and family pedigree get leveled. The crooked made straight uses the Greek word skolios, where we get scoliosis. It means bent or twisted.

Then the tax collectors ask what they should do. So do the soldiers. And John gives them practical answers.

One line I don't want us to miss: all flesh will see the salvation of God. Matthew and Mark quote Isaiah here too, but they stop after the first line. Luke keeps going, because he's writing so people outside Israel, including you and me, would know this story is for them too.

What does God know that you haven't said?

Look at verse 15. The people were wondering in their hearts about John. And then John answered them all.

Nobody said anything out loud. That's a callback to Simeon's prophecy in Luke 2, and it's a pattern you'll see all through this gospel. Jesus answers what nobody says out loud. John does it once here. Jesus does it continually.

A lot of us carry questions we never say. Does God actually see me. Is this ever going to change. Did I hear Him wrong. Am I somehow different, and that's why He doesn't talk to me.

God knows those thoughts. He knew them before you formed them, when they were still just feelings. There is not one thing you've thought or felt that God didn't know about. The things you're afraid to say out loud, He knows. The objections you think you shouldn't have, He knows.

So be honest with Him. Tell Him how you feel. He already knows, and He wants to speak to the fear and the pain and the raw spot, so that He can heal it.

That's part of making the rough way smooth.

Timestamps

Frequently asked questions

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Is the gift of prophecy still for today?

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Monday Daily Affirmations: Fully Known and Fully Loved (Psalm 139:1-2)

Start your Monday with confidence, peace, and purpose. These daily Christian affirmations are a short but powerful way to realign your heart and mind with biblical truth before the week begins. Today's affirmations are all about identity: who God says you are, and what changes when you believe it. Speak life over your day, renew your faith, and step into God's promises with Scripture straight from His Word.

I'll read each phrase, you repeat it, and then I'll tell you the Scripture

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Before we begin

Take a deep breath. This is a new day filled with God's grace and purpose.

Monday affirmations and Scripture

I am a child of God, chosen and loved.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

I am fully known and loved fully by God.

I have been chosen before the foundation of the world.

I am created in the image of God.

I am redeemed and made new in Christ.

I am set apart for God's purpose.

I am God's masterpiece, created for good works.

I am loved with an everlasting love.

I am called by name and belong to God.

I am not my past. I am a new creation.

I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.

I'm seated in heavenly places with Christ.

I am co-heir with Christ.

I am not rejected. I am accepted in Christ.

I am never alone. God is always with me.

I am valuable and precious in God's sight.

I have been set free by the truth of Jesus.

I am more than a conqueror through Christ.

I am a light in this world, shining for Christ.

I am God's dwelling place. His Spirit lives within me.

I am forgiven and free from condemnation.

I have a divine purpose and calling from God.

I am dearly loved and nothing can separate me from God's love.

Closing prayer

Father, thank You for reminding me who I am in You. Help me to walk in

I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go

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Sunday Daily Affirmations: I Trust God to Guide My Steps (Psalm 37:23)

Sunday is for looking ahead with God. Before the week begins, we pause and place what's coming into His hands. These Scripture-based Christian

I'll say each affirmation, pause so you can repeat it after me, and then

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Sunday affirmations and Scripture

I place this coming week in God's hands.

I trust God to guide my steps.

I enter this week with expectancy, not fear.

I invite God into every moment ahead.

I trust God to order my priorities.

I receive God's wisdom for the days ahead.

I walk into this week anchored in truth.

I trust God with what I cannot foresee.

I choose faith over anticipation of stress.

I rely on God's grace for each day.

I trust God's timing this week.

I remain open to God's leading.

I step forward with humility and trust.

I depend on God's strength, not my own.

I trust God with every conversation and decision.

I choose obedience over control.

I walk into this week aware of God's presence.

I trust God to work through ordinary moments.

I release anxiety about outcomes.

I remain attentive to God's voice.

I trust God to meet my needs.

I step into this week with courage.

I trust God to shape my character.

I begin this week grounded in hope.

I rest in God's faithfulness as I move forward.

Closing prayer

God, as I step into this new week, I place everything ahead of me in Your

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Saturday Daily Affirmations: I Recognize God's Faithfulness in Seen and

Saturday is a good day to slow down and look back over your week with

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Saturday affirmations and Scripture

I thank God for walking with me through this week.

I recognize God's faithfulness in both the seen and unseen moments.

I release regret and receive God's grace.

I trust that God was at work even when I didn't notice.

I give thanks for the strength God provided each day.

I acknowledge where I grew this week.

I notice where God invited me to trust Him more deeply.

I receive God's mercy for where I fell short.

I choose gratitude over self-criticism.

I honor the work God has been doing in my heart.

I acknowledge God's presence in ordinary moments.

I release this week into God's care.

I trust God with what remains unfinished.

I thank God for His patience with me.

I rest in the truth that God sees me fully.

I choose to end this week with gratitude.

I release comparison and embrace contentment.

I acknowledge God's protection this week.

I thank God for His provision.

I recognize God's quiet guidance.

I let go of striving and receive rest.

I honor the limits God has given me.

I trust God with what I do not understand.

I receive peace as I reflect with God.

I end this week grounded in God's faithfulness.

Closing prayer

God, thank You for walking with me through this week. Help me to see Your

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God Saw What Was Done to You: Listener Questions

Today is one of our Q&A episodes, where we take a pause from the Bible study so you have time to catch up and I can work through questions that have come in.

Two questions in this one. The first asks why people with religious roles so often fail to live obediently, which is a pattern running straight through Scripture. The second is harder and I want to handle it gently: why did God protect Cain after what he did, and why do some people lose their freedom because of somebody else's choices?

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Does being close to religion mean you're obedient to God?

Sarah put it in a phrase I keep thinking about: religious proximity does not equal religious obedience.

That's been a theme in Scripture from the very beginning. Adam and Eve were in perfect communion with God. They walked with Him daily. And still, because God gave us free will, proximity didn't produce obedience.

There isn't a day that goes by without someone in a religious role falling into sin. We hear about it constantly. You may have experienced church hurt yourself at the hands of a leader or a pastor. That's the reality of the fall, and it's the story written all through the pages of Scripture.

We've been watching it in Luke. The Roman political system had corrupted the religious leadership of the day, which is the whole backdrop behind the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the religious establishment Jesus keeps encountering. Having a religious role never meant being obedient to God.

What it comes down to is the difference between going to church and knowing Jesus. Some people go to church and then go home and harm their families the rest of the week. Some go hoping it absolves them of what they're doing elsewhere. A great deal of harm has been done in the name of religion. Proximity is not an indication of where the heart is.

And God's remedy for that, over and over in Scripture, is sending Jesus. We can know about Jesus without actually knowing Him, and those are two different things.

My hope for this show, and for the books and the trips and everything else we do, is that you would know Him for yourself. That doesn't mean you'll always get it right. We aren't perfect, which is exactly why we need Him. But being disobedient, feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit, confessing, and being restored to right relationship through Jesus is the whole rhythm of the Christian life.

Why did God protect Cain?

This question came in from someone working through the Genesis series, and it's one a lot of people carry, usually in different forms. At the heart of it is often a wound. If you've ever been hurt by somebody else's choices, you know the ache in it. Why does the person who caused the harm seem to get mercy while the person who was hurt has no say at all?

Let's look at what actually happens in Genesis 4.

Cain kills his brother in a field. Then God comes to him and says, what have you done, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Before God says one word about punishment, He makes it clear that He heard Abel. Abel never got a voice in that field. God gave him one. The first murder victim in Scripture is not forgotten.

Then comes the sentence, and it has layers. Cain is driven from the land, the ground won't produce for him, and he becomes a restless wanderer. He panics and says whoever finds him will kill him. And God puts a mark on him so that no one will.

Here's the detail worth knowing. The Hebrew word for mark is ot, which means sign. It's the same word used for the rainbow after the flood and for the blood on the doorposts at Passover. It isn't a brand of shame. It's a sign of protection.

Why would God protect him?

Two things are happening.

In the ancient world there were no courts and no police. Justice was handled by family members, and it usually meant revenge. And revenge did not stop at one life. Entire families were wiped out in the name of it. You can watch it start just a few verses later with Lamech, Cain's descendant, who brags about killing a man for wounding him and says if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven. That's what vengeance does when it's left in human hands. The seed of it grows.

So God's protection of Cain puts a limit on the violence before it consumes the whole human family.

And look what Jesus does with that number later. He takes Lamech's seventy-seven and turns it into how many times we forgive. The way of Jesus is forgiveness. There's still justice, but it belongs to God rather than to us.

Protecting Cain is not the same as excusing Cain. He lived with real consequences the rest of his life. The ground didn't work for him, and at that time that was survival. But God also didn't give up on him.

Remember, we're not reading these stories to study the people. We're reading them to see the character and nature of God. Here we see mercy and justice together. That's hard to hold at once, especially when you're the one who was hurt.

Why do some people lose their freedom because of someone else's choices?

God doesn't hand out free will to some and withhold it from others. Every person bears God's image and every person has a will. But we live in a broken world where our choices land on other people. Freedom means the choice to love, and it also means the choice to harm. When someone abuses or wounds or betrays another person, the one who was hurt didn't choose that. Their safety was taken. Their innocence was taken. God calls that evil.

I struggled with this myself for a long time. Years ago in seminary I was working through some childhood trauma with my spiritual director. In my mind, I got saved at fifteen, so I had somehow concluded that anything that happened before that was my own fault for being sinful, or that God hadn't shown up in my life yet.

What my spiritual director said to me then is what I've said to many of you since: the evil that was done to me grieved God too.

He grieves what is done to us. That's part of why He sent His Son.

There's a theological piece here worth naming. We live in what's called the already and the not yet. Jesus has already come, lived a sinless life, completed the work on the cross, defeated death, ascended, and sent the Holy Spirit. But this world is not yet fully redeemed. Until He returns, it isn't finished. So we live in a broken place, and those things break God's heart.

Where is God in what happened?

Scripture keeps showing us a God who moves toward the one who was harmed.

Think of Hagar. She was used and mistreated and left alone in the desert, and she named God El Roi, the God who sees me.

One of my favorite verses to share with people who are hurting is Psalm 34:18, that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. He knows you will experience heartbreak. This is not the world He designed, and it's why He sent Jesus to redeem and restore it. We're just not there yet.

He also promises justice. Romans 12 tells us vengeance belongs to the Lord, which means nothing done in the dark is overlooked.

And then there's Hebrews 12, which says the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Abel's blood cried out for justice. The blood of Jesus speaks healing and forgiveness and restoration. Jesus was the innocent one harmed by other people's choices, and He allowed it so that nothing done to you would be the end of your story.

If you're carrying something that was done to you, I want you to know that God saw it. He grieves it. And He has not stopped working toward your healing.

Timestamps

Frequently asked questions

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Friday Daily Affirmations: God's Peace Fills My Heart and I Rest in His

End your week anchored in peace and presence. These Scripture-based

I'll say each affirmation, pause so you can repeat it after me, and then

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Before we begin

The week is ending, and as we step into the weekend, let's take a moment to

Friday affirmations and Scripture

I release my worries and trust God to handle what I cannot.

God's peace fills my heart and I rest in His presence.

I am not defined by my mistakes. God's grace is greater than my failures.

I let go of the need to control everything and surrender to God's perfect

I am deeply loved by God and nothing can separate me from His love.

God refreshes my soul and renews my strength.

I will be fully present today, trusting that God holds tomorrow.

My body, mind, and spirit find rest in God alone.

I let go of striving and choose to rest in God's love.

I step into the weekend with joy, knowing that God is in control.

God's presence is my safe place.

I am fully known and fully loved by God.

I will not let stress steal my peace today.

God is my refuge and I am safe in His hands.

I do not need to have all the answers. I trust God.

God is fighting my battles and I can rest in His victory.

I will not fear because God is with me.

I am held together by God's love even when life feels overwhelming.

God's goodness and mercy follow me every day.

I will not carry burdens that God has already taken from me.

I am at peace because God is in control.

I trust in God's timing even when I don't understand.

I will lay down my burdens and take on God's.

I am never alone for God is always with me.

No matter what happens today, God is still good.

Closing prayer

Father, as this week comes to an end, I lay my burdens at Your feet. Help

I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go

Listen daily and start your morning with God's truth so you can walk in

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John the Baptist could have served in the temple. He was the son of a priest, and by birthright that door was open to him. Instead he lived in the desert, and that's where the word of God found him.

Today we slow down on one phrase in verse two and ask what the wilderness actually was, why John chose it over the temple, and why God so often separates people before He uses them.

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Why was John in the wilderness?

Luke told us back in chapter one, verse eighty, that the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel. So the wilderness is essentially where John grew up.

The practical reason may be simple. Zechariah and Elizabeth were both advanced in years when he was born, so it's reasonable to think they died while he was still young. Scripture doesn't say, but something moved him out of the village and into the desert early.

There's also the calling. Gabriel said he would drink no wine or liquor and would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, which sounds a great deal like the Nazirite vow from Numbers 6. Normally a person chose that vow. John was set apart from conception, the way Samson and Samuel were. That word anointing means set apart. Someone with that kind of calling was never going to live an ordinary village life.

Mark fills in the picture. John was clothed with camel's hair, wore a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. Locusts were permitted food under the law, so he was eating what God provided in the desert. The clothing is not an accident either. Elijah is described in 2 Kings as a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist, and Gabriel said John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. John was dressing the part. He didn't have to. It was a physical way of showing people who he was and what he had come to do.

Why does it matter that he chose this?

Because he had another option.

John was the son of Zechariah, a priest. By birth he had the right to serve in the temple. He could have spent those years in the temple courts waiting for Jesus to begin His ministry, and it would have been far more comfortable. The temple was the center of Israel's worship, the place where God's presence dwelt with His people, the most sacred address in the entire nation.

John went the opposite direction.

What was that wilderness actually like?

When we hear desert we picture sand dunes. This was not that. This was rocky hills, deep ravines, scrub brush, and almost no water.

The area sits in the shadow of the mountains of Judea, so storms drop their rain on the Jerusalem side and very little makes it over. Jericho gets only a few inches a year. In spring a thin grass comes up and shepherds bring flocks through, but the rest of the year it is dry and very hot, especially as you drop toward the Dead Sea, which sits about 1,400 feet below sea level, the lowest place on dry land anywhere on earth.

The Hebrew word for this region is midbar, and it doesn't mean dead. It means uncultivated. Open country where you might drive flocks at certain times of year, but land nobody could farm and nobody owned.

This is the land David knew. He shepherded here as a boy and hid here from Saul. When he wrote in Psalm 63 about seeking God in a dry and weary land where there is no water, he wasn't only being poetic. He was describing what he could see.

How did people at that time think about the wilderness?

They held two feelings about it at once.

First, it was dangerous, physically and spiritually. No water, extreme heat, wild animals, even rumors of lions, and bandits. The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho ran through here, which is the road in the story of the Good Samaritan. People understood that story because they knew that road.

Beyond the physical, they believed evil was out there. On the Day of Atonement they drove a goat carrying the sins of Israel out into the wilderness, which we read in Leviticus. Isaiah 34 describes ruined desert places haunted by wild creatures. Jesus Himself later says an unclean spirit passes through waterless places. Keep that in mind, because in Luke 4 Jesus goes into this same wilderness for forty days.

Second, and at the same time, it was holy ground. Many would have remembered the wilderness as the place where God courted Israel. In Jeremiah 2, God says He remembers the devotion of her youth, the love of her betrothals, her following after Him in the wilderness. It was almost their honeymoon, the time before they had anything, when they simply followed Him.

This is where Israel became a people. They came out of Egypt and spent forty years in the desert. They received the law at Sinai. They ate manna. They learned to depend on God for water. This was the place where they had nothing but Him. In Hosea 2, God says He will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her. When God wanted to win back the hearts of His people, He brought them here.

Why baptize in the Jordan?

There's one exception to all that barrenness. The Jordan River valley runs through it like a green ribbon, thick with brush and trees. Scripture calls it the thickets of the Jordan, dense enough that wild animals lived there.

So picture John standing at the meeting point of two worlds. Behind him, miles of empty rock and heat. In front of him, a muddy winding river with green growing along both sides. In the middle of all that nothing, he is preaching about life and water. They could see that. We can't, but they could.

Practically, he needed water, and the Jordan was the travel route, so the crowds were already there. But the river also carried history. This is where Israel crossed into the promised land. So when people walked out to be baptized, they were stepping into the same water their ancestors crossed in Joshua 3. It was like a national do-over, a chance to start over.

And notice what the trip itself required. To be baptized by John you had to leave Jerusalem, walk away from the temple courts, and travel out toward the desert. That journey was part of the message. The system had grown so corrupt that the high priesthood was political and controlled by one family. John's location was essentially saying, come out here, we're going to start over.

Was this politically dangerous?

Yes. Josephus, the Jewish historian writing in that same era, describes several men who claimed to be deliverers, gathering followers out in the wilderness near the Jordan and promising signs of freedom. Rome crushed every one of them. In Acts 21 a Roman officer asks Paul whether he's the Egyptian who led four thousand men into the wilderness.

So when crowds started streaming out of Jerusalem to hear a man in camel's hair eating locusts, it looked like the start of something. That's why the religious leaders sent a delegation to ask who he thought he was, and it's part of why Herod Antipas eventually arrests him.

What does this mean for us?

John could have been in the temple. But the word of God didn't come to the temple. It came to a man in the desert who was ready to prepare the way.

And here's the part I keep sitting with. John was out there a long time before any of this happened. Alone.

That's a pattern. Moses met God at the burning bush after tending someone else's sheep for forty years. Elijah heard the still small voice after running for his life, in a cave. David wrote some of his best psalms while hiding.

Years ago at a women's retreat, they had us write a letter to ourselves from God. What came out was this: in this next season, you're going to have to separate to elevate. At the time I thought it just sounded like a sermon title. Then the Lord began pulling me away from relationships that had been fine in the season before, out of the orphan care ministry and the global missions role I loved, into heavy research for books and Bible studies and eventually into podcasting full time. I had to be separated before that season started, and it felt lonely.

When we're separated, we tend to think those seasons are empty and God isn't there. But the wilderness is often where He forms the people He's about to use, because there is nothing out there competing for your attention. It's just you and Him.

John spent decades in that silence before he said a word publicly. When he finally spoke, the whole nation came out to listen.

If you're in a separated season, I know it's lonely. Let it be the season that drives you to your knees and teaches you to recognize His voice, so that when the thing He's preparing you for arrives, you come to it having already spent time alone with Him.

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Thursday Daily Affirmations: I Trust in the Lord to Guide My Steps

You were created on purpose, for a purpose. These Scripture-based

I'll say each affirmation, pause so you can repeat it after me, and then

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Before we begin

God created you for a reason. Your life is not an accident, and your

Thursday affirmations and Scripture

God has a purpose for my life and I walk in His plan.

I trust in the Lord to guide my steps.

I seek wisdom, and God gives it freely.

God is directing my steps and I do not walk alone.

I am a light in this world, shining for Christ.

God has prepared good works for me to do today.

I am equipped for every good work.

I walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I will walk in faith, not in fear.

God's Word lights my path.

I choose obedience, knowing God's ways are best.

I live with purpose and do not waste my time.

I am called to make an impact for God's Kingdom.

I have the mind of Christ and seek His wisdom daily.

I am a vessel for God's work.

I will not grow weary in doing good.

God's purpose for me cannot be stopped.

I do everything for the glory of God.

God is using my life to accomplish His plan.

I am bold in sharing the gospel.

I walk in step with the Spirit.

I remain steadfast in my calling.

God will finish the work He started in me.

I live with an eternal perspective.

I press forward in my faith, knowing my reward is in Heaven.

Closing prayer

Father, thank You for calling me to a life of purpose. Help me to walk in

I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go

Listen daily and start your morning with God's truth so you can walk in

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