And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. Matthew 3:9
John the Baptist continued to lay it on the Pharisees and Sadducees who showed up to watch him. One of their most reliable defenses was to say “we are children of Abraham,” meaning “we are chosen by God.” As you’ll remember, God promised to deliver all people through Abraham and his descendants, the Jews.
In other words, the Pharisees were ‘those people’ who would attack you, then run back to hide behind some façade, saying “I’m untouchable. You can’t get me!” Na na na na boo boo. Whatever. John was having none of it. His response was “don’t think you’re so big that God doesn’t see you as the insignificant things you are.”
Never forget this: God doesn’t need us. He doesn’t need our sins, and our baggage, and our disobedience, and our arrogance. God doesn’t need us to think we can earn our way into heaven. And God doesn’t need us to prove that we’re better than other people so that He will love us more, or choose us more than “them.” God doesn’t need these headaches. If we don’t cut the mustard, God can replace us.
But He wants us. He wants each one of us so much that He was eager to humble Himself and come here, to the Third Rock, full of sinful baggage-laden humans who hated each other as much as we disobeyed Him. He wants us because He loves us because He’s God and we aren’t and it’s in His true nature to share that love through mercy and His means of grace. He wants us each to know Him and love Him back, and to share in His unending blessings forever. He wants us enough to die for us, because He did.
But He also sees us as we are. And, because He doesn’t need us, even though He loves us and wants us, if He so chooses, He can make new people to love and revere Him out of stones in the road. Or dead leaves in your yard. Or a bag of concrete at Home Depot. Or even out of thin air. God is God and He can do anything. ANYTHING.
John knew that, and he wasn’t afraid to remind the big-in-the-head leaders of religion that, for all their knowledge and self-congratulation, they were nothing compared to the God who can do anything. John never sugar-coated his messages, and he cared little for the political correctness of his day. John knew his life was blessed by the God of all possibilities, who could make new people out of stones in the road or dust in the wind. God can do that still, today.
For more reading: Luke 3:8, Matthew 3:10
Lord, You can do anything. Nothing is impossible for You. I trust You always and follow You only.
Practical Proverbs 