Autumn started last Sunday, not that you’d notice in Florida. Where I’m from in Chicago the leaves are starting to change colors. Soon they’ll fall off the trees, and you have to rake them up. When I was a kid people burned the fallen leaves. Around twilight they set fire to piles of leaves in the street. That would attract every small boy in the neighborhood. A fire was fascinating. It provided heat and light but it could also be destructive, a fact clearly evident as the dried leaves were turned into ash. There was something both attractive and frightening about fires. You’d better have a healthy respect for what a fire can do.

Fire is a natural religious sign. God is attractive as the creator of all things, but God is also the judge who has the power of life and death. People today don’t like hearing about God as Judge perhaps because that was sometimes used to scare people into doing things. That’s a mistake. We ought to act rightly not because we are afraid of punishment, but because we love God. God the judge is also God of mercy. However, we don’t understand God’s mercy unless we also recognize what God could be like if God didn’t choose to be merciful.

It’s what Luther taught in explaining each of the Ten Commandments with the words, “We should so fear and love God.” Without both fear and love God can become a pushover who can be ignored. “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all else.”

Read Proverbs 9:10 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne