by Sal Huckel
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Read Matthew 3:1–12
Today’s passage invites us to the banks of the Jordan, where John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry. His humble lifestyle and calls to repentance were already bringing the people to respond to their sins and be baptised by John in the river. Not surprisingly, also came the conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
John’s reprimand and call to repentance is stark. We might feel that it was well deserved. After all, we do know much about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their apparent hypocrisy. Paul himself was a Pharisee. While the Pharisees and Sadducees had doctrinal disagreements, they were united in their efforts against Jesus. Here, John’s warning is for them all.
What can we learn here today? We can study the baptism John was bringing, how Jesus’ baptism is the one we need and the meaning it has for us now to be baptised into Jesus’ baptism. We can also ponder what it means to ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’. How does that look? What do we need to repent of? We sometimes hear that Jesus simplified the Ten Commandments and that we don’t need to worry about all of those anymore; we are not ‘under the law’. However, Jesus said he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them (Matthew 5:17).
Unless we understand God’s law, we cannot properly repent. We may feel the law is less prescriptive and onerous ‘since Jesus’, but if we begin to unpack the Ten Commandments and look at Martin Luther’s explanations – the Small Catechism is very helpful on this – we will see that they go further than we might expect. It’s a misleading idea that ‘Jesus replaced them’. Helpfully, rather like the ways in which it is best to teach children, Luther offers positive instruction to further expand on the negatives.
Start today with commandment number one: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ We don’t have to look very far to see the things that compete for our attention, love and trust. How can you fear, love and trust God above all things today? To produce fruit in keeping with repentance, we need to follow through with this.
Father God, help me to more fully understand the law written in our hearts (Romans 2:15) and produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sal is married to Pastor Matthew Huckel, and they live in Victoria with their six children, enjoying their ministry with Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church. Their two eldest children are excited to study at undergraduate and postgraduate levels during term time in Sydney. Theology, music, philosophy, literature and history are passions the family shares and explores together. Sal loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at every opportunity.
Are you trying to revive what God has released?
by Jane Mueller
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).
Read Romans 6:3–11
Some of us are lugging around stories we were never meant to keep alive.
Old habits, old fears, old versions of ourselves – things God has released in Christ. We polish them, defend them, justify them and even call them ‘just how I am’. But resurrection life doesn’t come by dragging the past into the present. It comes by letting the past stay finished.
Paul doesn’t mince words in today’s reading. Baptism is hardly a sentimental symbol. It shows us what God is like – decisive, cleansing and lifegiving. When water is poured over us, it declares that the old ways of living no longer have control. The same God who meets us in that water continues meeting us every day, calling us out of old patterns and into new life.
So why do we keep trying to revive what God has released? Why do we rehearse the same resentments, recycle the same narratives and keep identifying with the same wounds? The perfectionist who can’t stop striving, the leader who keeps replaying old failures, the friend who keeps apologising for taking up space, the parent who still believes they’re not enough? Maybe it’s because the old life is familiar. And sometimes, ‘familiar’ feels safer than ‘free’.
But resurrection doesn’t happen in comfort zones. You can’t keep one foot in the past and one in grace. Paul says, ‘Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God.’ That’s an active choice – daily, sometimes hourly.
So maybe it’s time to ask: What’s still taking up oxygen in my soul that should’ve been surrendered by now? What part of me keeps trying to reclaim a life that’s already been transformed?
Stop propping up the old storyline. Step fully into the new one.
Stop trying to become someone new. Start living like the new creation you already are.
And if no-one’s ever spoken this over you, let it land now: the old you is finished. The new you is alive. Walk in it, breathe from it, own it, live it, shine through it.
God of resurrection, expose parts of me still clinging to what you’ve released. Give me the courage to stop rehearsing the things you’ve already finished, and to rise – fully and freely – into the life you’ve given me. Amen.
Jane is a former Lutheran school principal and now serves as Governance Leadership Director for Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA. Jane has a keen interest in psychology, enjoys hiking and loves learning about and trying new things.
The day the Spirit hit ‘go’
by Jane Mueller
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 2:38).
Read Acts 2:36–42
Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit turned a local message into a global one. Different people, different accents, different dialects, one message: Jesus is alive. The Holy Spirit disassembled arguably the biggest obstacle to global mission – the language barrier – by translating the gospel into the mother tongue of people from every nation under heaven. Pentecost shows that God doesn’t wait for us to work our way toward him; he meets us where we are. He meets us in our own language, our own culture and our own generation.
And, for that reason, maybe the Pentecost account needs a ‘remix’ to remind us that when God speaks fluent ‘human’, he speaks to all generations.
The Pentecost remix: Generation Alpha dialect
Fast-forward 50 days from Passover. Jerusalem’s stacked with pilgrims and passports from every corner – accents everywhere. Then boom: the disciples start spitting truth in every language. Not subtitles – Spirit-titles.
Crowds freeze mid-conversation like, ‘Hold up – how are these Galileans speaking my hometown lingo?’ Peter rolls up and goes, ‘Chill, this isn’t energy-drink mania – the Spirit pressed “go”, that’s all.’ Then he drops the gospel bomb: Jesus is alive. (Peter’s talking about the J-Man – the GOATed teacher who dropped parables like mixtapes, fed 5,000 with leftovers, and told sickness to sit down.) Peter drops the sequel: the main character’s alive, the Holy One’s still running the show. Death got debugged. Forgiveness is legit, and the Spirit’s for the global group chat.
The crowd is in meltdown, like, ‘Bruh, what even is step two? Do we just download forgiveness?’
Peter hits them with the classic mic drop: ‘Μετανοήσατε, καὶ βαπτισθήτω.’
Luther remixed it for his gen: ‘Tut Buße und lasst euch taufen.’
Vintage translators nerfed it to: ‘Repent and be baptised.’
Gen Alpha translation: ‘Change lanes, turn around, get grounded and glowed up.’
The Spirit goes full send – holy fire, zero chill. Heaven’s update drops, tongues are trending, and hope is on repeat. It’s a full-on grace quake – fear collapses, hearts reboot, and mercy shakes the system. Ordinary people walk like miracles because heaven’s already gone live.
That’s Pentecost: God turning human confusion into connection, and chaos into community.
The Spirit speaks our language today – through culture, creativity and even our clumsy words. We don’t need a polished speech or perfect prayers because God works through our real talk, our half-formed thoughts, our casual slang and our misunderstood jargon. He takes our normal, everyday voice – regardless of our generational dialect – and translates our words into living hope.
Holy Spirit, translate my hesitation into faith, my distraction into focus and my words into worship. Let your fire burn bright – in me, in your church and in the world. Amen.
Jane is a former Lutheran school principal and now serves as Governance Leadership Director for Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA. Jane has a keen interest in psychology, enjoys hiking and loves learning about and trying new things.
Ashes don’t get the last word
by Jane Mueller.
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). Read Ezekiel 36:24–28
Australia knows bushfires. Black Friday in 1939 scorched Victoria, darkening the skies with smoke and killing 71 people. Ash Wednesday in 1983 claimed 75 lives across Victoria and South Australia, levelling whole communities. Black Summer in 2019–20 brought devastation on a scale almost beyond comprehension – millions of hectares burned, and thousands of homes destroyed. Thirty-three people lost their lives to the flames, and hundreds more deaths were later counted among the toll from smoke exposure. Every summer, the memory of bushfire lingers like a scar on our land and our hearts.
Ezekiel also knew devastation. He wrote to exiles who had seen their land razed, their temple destroyed, and their hope reduced to ash. Into that bleakness, God spoke, ‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean … I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.’ God promised that destruction would not be the final word. Renewal was coming.
Have you walked in a bushfire-blackened landscape? It looks hopeless. Yet after rain, green shoots push through the ash. Nature holds the secret of resurrection. Likewise, God takes our scorched places – the losses, the grief, the failures – and brings new life. His Spirit writes resilience on our hearts. He plants hope where there was only ruin.
Scars remain, but scars can testify. Just as the landscape bears the memory of fire even as it regenerates, we bear witness to God’s Spirit who brings life from death. Out of ashes comes beauty. Out of devastation comes a new heart.
God of hope, I remember those who grieve losses caused by bushfires – past and present. Bring comfort to the broken-hearted and strength to rebuild. As I go about my day today, show me signs of new growth – a plant sprouting, a flower opening or even weeds pushing through cracks. Let these signs remind me that you bring life where I least expect it. Amen.
Jane is a former Lutheran school principal and now serves as Governance Leadership Director for Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA. Jane has a keen interest in psychology, enjoys hiking and loves learning about and trying new things.