God's Cleaning Tool

Matthew 3:11-12

""I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am – I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.""

There is an abundance of teachings on how to live holy and right with God. The most popular teaching about holiness is what some preachers call the "Doobeedoo method" and it goes something like this: "Do this! Be like this! Do that! Be like that!" A never ending series of "do... be... do... be... do..." Sadly, this popular method is ineffective in producing holiness for they put the responsibility of being holy in your own efforts. Holiness is a gift that's to be received and not a wage to be worked for. It is a character that you produce naturally not forcefully. Righteousness and holiness are embedded and imputed in you after believing the payment that Christ Jesus did for your sins. It cannot be altered nor reverted for it is a permanent condition.

We all have bad habits and attitudes even as a believer and most of us struggle in overcoming these imperfections. But the best way in dealing with these weaknesses is through the power of the Holy Spirit. I love how the Lord likened the Holy Spirit to a winnowing fork! A winnowing fork is a farm tool that is used to remove chaffs from the grains. It is done by tossing the threshed grains into the air so that the wind will blow the chaffs away and only the grains would fall down and remain. That's exactly how the Holy Spirit removes every bad habits and attitudes in our lives. He lifts us up and makes us see how we are already seated with Christ in the heavenlies. He points us to Christ's finished work on the cross which shows us how we are already made righteous and forgiven through his blood by cleansing all our sins. And as He continuously reveal our holiness and righteousness in Christ, every negative character that we have fades away. Then you will begin to live with righteousness and holiness naturally without struggles.

An image of how a winnowing fork is used to remove chaffs from the grain.

If you want your bad habits and attitudes removed, then ask the Holy Spirit to minister in your life. For He is God's top of the class cleaning tool. He lifts up, blows away the chaffs and preserves the pure grains in your life.

(Note: All images used in this article are from google.)