Really!!!

Colorado Springs, Colorado

This female house finch looked a little perturbed that a camera was pointing at her. She is giving the camera a look like she's being photographer by a paparazzo. I half expected her to fly at the camera (though I was safely hidden in my house as I snapped this pic remotely).

We want our privacy. We don't want people prying into our lives, sticking their noses where they don't belong, but is isolating ourselves from others best for our lives?

"The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." Mark 1:5 New International Version

The people that joined John at the Jordan did so in the context of community. Friends, relatives and neighbors joined each other at the river bank, and at the river bank they confessed their sins to one another. The word used for confess has the force of declaring something out loud. The people heard each other confess their failings and their sin.

They also heard the word of forgiveness, and received that forgiveness in the water. As John baptized, he proclaimed that his baptism was baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, not the condemnation of the sinner. Those who came to water, walked away forgiven.

There is something powerful when Christians confess sin to each other and speak the word of forgiveness to each other.

In that moment, Satan loses.

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(Click on picture to enlarge.)

Text and Photographs ©Copyright 2012-2014 Douglas P. Brauner.  ARR.