How many of us read our Bible and either assume we know what something means or just skip over what we don’t understand and just keep reading? What if we slowed down, asked the Holy Spirit some questions, He is our counselor, or did some research on a subject? What we would find is a richer understanding of the word and a greater hunger forming inside us to know God more. Hunger begets hunger when it comes to God’s word.

Today I was reading Luke 3 and it says about Jesus His winnowing fork is in His hand. I’m a city girl, I couldn’t pick a winnowing fork out of of cutlery set if asked to. But I do hunger for truth, so I looked it up and this is what I learned. A winnowing fork is a hand device used by the farmer to throw the mix from his shredded pile of grain and straw into the air to let the wind carry the straw and chaff away and the grain fall back for collection. Locked and loaded, here we go.

Because we have been born in Babylon, mixture, you see it in the church everywhere, the Lord is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire to baptize us in order to get the mixture out of us. No wonder it feels like the Lord has thrown us up in the air like 52 card pick up, for in Luke 3:16-17 “John answered and said to them all, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” The Lord is separating Babylon from us.

What looks mean, harsh, scary in some scriptures is many times misunderstanding the heart of God for His people. He is always coming to help us and if He has to throw our life in the air, figuratively speaking to get us free from Babylon and to gather us like wheat to Himself, so be it. Bring on the winnowing fork; the Holy Spirit; and the fire. We need to be free from the mixture of Babylon, for freedom is our inheritance now!